The paper analyzes the history of the European cooperation in the Mediterranean Sea. Starting from the Cold War period and from the decolonization process, the Author tries to reconstruct the political premises and the interventions implemented by the European Economic Community, analyzing the limits of an Eurocentric approach. After the Berlin Wall fall and the Maastricht Treaty, the new opportunities offered by an enlargement towards East suggested European Union to start a Euro-Mediterranean Partnership with North Africa and Middle East States, in order not lo lose a strategic area for the European security. The Barcelona Process, inaugurated in 1994 in the Spanish city, aimed to create a free trade area within 2010 in a context of peace and cooperation. Unfortunately, both the limits of the project and the evolution of the international situation, with the rise of Islamist terrorism, together with some intrinsic limits of the Partnership, led to a partial failure, obliging European States and EU to elaborate a new kind of cooperation, launched by French government in 2008 with the name of Union for the Mediterranean. The outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011 has temporarily stopped this new experiment of cooperation, confirming, then again, the importance of the Mediterranean theatre in the age of globalization.
Da Barcellona a Marsiglia. Le politiche dell'Unione europea nel Mediterraneo
ISONI, Alessandro
2012-01-01
Abstract
The paper analyzes the history of the European cooperation in the Mediterranean Sea. Starting from the Cold War period and from the decolonization process, the Author tries to reconstruct the political premises and the interventions implemented by the European Economic Community, analyzing the limits of an Eurocentric approach. After the Berlin Wall fall and the Maastricht Treaty, the new opportunities offered by an enlargement towards East suggested European Union to start a Euro-Mediterranean Partnership with North Africa and Middle East States, in order not lo lose a strategic area for the European security. The Barcelona Process, inaugurated in 1994 in the Spanish city, aimed to create a free trade area within 2010 in a context of peace and cooperation. Unfortunately, both the limits of the project and the evolution of the international situation, with the rise of Islamist terrorism, together with some intrinsic limits of the Partnership, led to a partial failure, obliging European States and EU to elaborate a new kind of cooperation, launched by French government in 2008 with the name of Union for the Mediterranean. The outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011 has temporarily stopped this new experiment of cooperation, confirming, then again, the importance of the Mediterranean theatre in the age of globalization.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
