Europe and its institutional epiphany, initially the European Economic Community and now the European Union, have a long record of relationship with the Mediterranean area. The EU has a vital interest in maintaining stable and peaceful relations with this region, where daunting challenges are at work, not only for trade and financial flows, but also in a number of strategic fields, ranging from those of overall stability and security in face of multifaceted tensions, to those of environment, migrations and energy security.
That is why the EU since the early 1960s has been supporting regional comprehensive cooperation and integration schemes, the last of which has been the Barcelona Process launched in 1995 with the aim to establish a Euro-Mediterranean cooperation with three distinct chapters on political and security issues, on economic and financial partnership and on social, cultural and human rights. In addition recently the EU has also started the European Neighbourhood Policy, which extends to a number of Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries.
This book aims at describing and analyzing in critical terms the state of affairs at the beginning of the 21st century, together with the possible evolution, of the Euro-Mediterranean relationships from two main standpoints: on the one hand that of the political and strategic challenges with which the EU and the countries of the area are confronted, and on the other that of the economic links shaping the network of trade and financial relations taking place along the North-South dimension. All that taking into account the recent EU enlargement towards both East and South, and the whole set of constraints and opportunities referring to sustainable development in the Mediterranean basin.
The papers published in this volume are the fruit of a research effort on such subjects by a network of Euro-Mediterranean universities kicked off in 2004, with a grant from the Jean Monnet Action. The network included the universities of Cyprus, Genoa, Panteion of Athens, on the one hand, and of Cairo, Istanbul, Rabat and Tunis, on the other. Coordination was provided by the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the Genoa University.