Towards a New EU Approach in the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean region has always been in the spotlight for some reason or other. The most striking reason is an almost daily reference in the press to developments in the Middle East, President Moammar Qadaffi of Libya occasionally finds himself at centre stage for his peculiar remarks on the state of the world, while Egypt is still seen as a regional power whose authority is being challenged in a variety of ways. Like other regions, the Mediterranean was also severely tested by the consequences of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, both in terms of their impact on the Arab world and through their association with militant Islam and in relation to the rise of neoconservative interventionism aspiring to remake the Greater Middle East which led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Closer to home, the sum total of the aforementioned trends and developments has also had an impact on how the states of Europe, especially through the cumulative expression of th...