Mediterranean Policy Program

Policy Brief

April 2015

Summary: Two interconnected

developments are reshaping the
Mediterranean security equation
in a profound way and for the
long term: the globalization of
the Mediterranean space and
the weakening of the Arab state
system from the Middle East to
North Africa. Transatlantic actors
will have to shift their aims from
building a Mediterranean security community of sorts to the
more basic goal of preserving
some kind of international order
in an increasingly chaotic region.
The European Union and the
United States may be finally
pushed toward greater convergence by a fast-deteriorating
security environment calling for
a focus on common strategic
interests and prudently defined
normative ambitions.

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Forced Convergence? Transatlantic Strategy

in the Global Mediterranean
by Emiliano Alessandri
Introduction
Two interconnected developments are
reshaping the Mediterranean security equation in a profound way and
for the long term: the globalization
of the Mediterranean space and the
weakening of the Arab state system
from the Middle East to North Africa.
Transatlantic actors are hard pressed
to adjust their policies, which have
been traditionally Europe-centric,
to reflect the increasingly global as
well as more competitive nature of
contemporary Mediterranean politics.
They will also have to shift their aims
from building a Mediterranean security community of sorts to the more
basic goal of preserving some kind of
international order in an increasingly
chaotic region.
Often divided as to the most effective
strategies to achieve the shared goal
of Mediterranean stability, the European Union and the United States
may be finally pushed toward greater
convergence by a fast-deteriorating
security environment calling for a
focus on common strategic interests
and prudently defined normative
ambitions.

The Fragmented, Yet Global,

Mediterranean
The overarching trend of the ongoing
Mediterranean transformation is the
globalization of the Mediterranean
space. This is, in many ways, a return
to the past. Historically, the Mediterranean area was the cradle of modern
interdependence. For centuries up to
the recent bipolar era, the basin stood
at the center of global geopolitical
dynamics.
After the end of the Cold War, the
Mediterranean was increasingly
conceptualized as an extension of the
European region an area largely
stabilized in security and strategic
terms by the successful Europeanization of Southern Europe and the
projection of the European Unions
allegedly stabilizing influences in the
South.
A more self-confident EU, which
was completing its economic union
and enlarging its membership eastward, reached the conclusion that
conditions were ripe for an ambitious project of region-building
on a Mediterranean scale. The
so-called Barcelona process, whose
20th anniversary will be celebrated
without much fanfare in November,
aspired to create a Mediterranean
security community of sorts despite

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Policy Brief
long-standing unsettled regional issues such as the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.

Washingtons low profile in Euro-Mediterranean multilateralism was also due to the EUs hesitancy to involve its
transatlantic partner in institutional settings and policies
that aspired to stabilize the region on European terms, that
is, in mainly cooperative and non-military ways. Finally, it
was thought that under a common Mediterranean policy
umbrella, post-colonial legacies, of which the United States
was not part, could be more conveniently managed.

Apparently not deterred by this and other lingering

tensions, Brussels promised a number of Arab countries
everything but the institutions through far-reaching
association agreements with the EU. Although denying its
southern neighbors the prospect of EU membership, these
arrangements were designed to foster local development
and support domestic reform, as well as provide goods and
people gradual access to the European space.

In recent years, the artificial nature of EU-initiated schemes

for the Mediterranean region has become more and more
apparent. The wishful character of the European neighborhood approach has also been exposed. The eurocrisis, on
one hand, and the drift of the MENA region into chaos
after a failed Arab Spring, on the other, have irremediably
undermined the Europe-centric notion of the Mediterranean as one of the concentric areas of stability and convergence around the EU core.

In fact, the deals extended to Southern Mediterranean

countries often reinforced cozy relations between European
governments and local authoritarian regimes. The latter
managed to seize EU funds intended for their societies
in exchange for security cooperation, particularly in the
field of counter-terrorism and the control of cross-border
criminal activities. These security-focused partnerships
became especially close and important after 9/11.

As a matter of fact, a North-South divide has re-emerged

across Europe itself, separating societies that display
markedly different levels of prosperity and widely varied
economic structures in spite of decades of integration.
Cultural, even religious and civilizational, arguments have
been resurrected, especially by rising populist and nationalist movements, to explain the shortcomings and lags
faced by Mediterranean Europe. Founding EU members
such as Italy, to which the European project importantly
owes much, have not been fully spared by antagonizing
tendencies to depict a rift between the EUs Northern and
Southern societies.

For its part, the United States strongly and actively

supported the Europeanization of Southern Europe in the
1980s as part of the vision of a democratic Europe that was
to open its economy to global markets and emerge whole
and free from the Cold War. Washington also broadly
supported the EU policies for the Southern Mediterranean
including by sharing the 2003 European Security Strategys
goal of promoting a ring of well-governed countries on
the borders of the Mediterranean with whom we can enjoy
close and cooperative relations. This was seen as favoring
the extension of the European peace to a region that after
World War II had become of strategic importance to the
United States through its commitment to Israels security
and the Wests heavy reliance on Middle Eastern oil.

As a result of internal tensions and centrifugal forces,

the European project, including the common currency,
has come under formidable pressure. The view is indeed
spreading that growing divergence may be an inescapable
reality even as unprecedented efforts are made to keep
the trajectories of European countries aligned. According
to this reading, Southern European countries are bound
to face challenges, from deep inequality to endemic and
political weakness, which will inevitably weaken the fabric
of societies. Already failing integration models will be
put to test while their neighbors will be confronted with a
range of negative spillovers that may prompt them to seek
to establish firewalls in a number of domains.

However, Washingtons strategy differed in important

ways from Europes in that, especially after 9/11, it pursued
regime change as a means to promote Western interests.
The United States also remained notably absent from
the various institutional frameworks that were set up
to support Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, lastly the
French-inspired Union for the Mediterranean in 2008. This
can be explained by Washingtons focus on select subregional contexts and a preference for bilateral relations
with key players, from Egypt to Morocco, which resulted in
a lack of active interest in (pan)Mediterranean multilateralism.

Growing uneasiness with the so-called Schengen regime

for the free movement of people already testifies to the
inclination of some EU members toward (re)establishing
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a cordon sanitaire of sorts across Europe, moving back the
external border from the Mediterranean Sea to within the
continent.

Caught in this predicament, the Southern Mediterranean has seen the rise of forces that question the Arab
state system as it emerged from the disintegration of the
Ottoman Empire and the colonization and de-colonization
processes in the 20th century. These actors, such as the
self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS), have resurrected premodern visions of Middle East, justifying their new brutal
ideology with a misleading reference to tradition while
waging a frontal assault of all cultures that have dominated
the region over the past decades, from Western-derived
secular ideologies such as Arab nationalism to moderate
political Islam.

As Southern Europe re-Mediterraneanized, Arab societies

in the Southern Mediterranean have proved unable to cope
with the disruptions caused by accelerating globalization
and its complex local effects. Current bleak assessments of
regional prospects often forget that what led to the Arab
uprisings of 2011 were new societal realities created by
modernization and the gradual adherence of local communities to global socio-economic trends. Among new forces
to be reckoned with is an increasingly educated and largely
unemployed Arab youth, which simply does not accept
being perpetually excluded from decision-making and
deprived of economic opportunity.

The involvement of regional powers from the Levant and

the Gulf in dividing the spoils of an increasingly vulnerable
and destructured Southern Mediterranean order adds a
layer of complexity to the Mediterranean security equation.
While concerned about the future of their regimes, Iran
and the Gulf monarchies have taken their historical competition to new levels, engaging in proxy wars in Syria and
Iraq and, most recently, in Libya and Yemen. This competition may very well increase, while perhaps following somewhat more predictable parameters if Iran were rehabilitated
as a regional actor following a resolution of the nuclear
program controversy. Teheran is not shying away from
pursuing its regional interests, including through military
means if needed, via a range of proxies even as a nuclear
deal is being finalized.

Arab women are also acquiring a new social as well as

political profile as they are no longer exclusively absorbed
by family-oriented responsibilities. Fertility rates have
dramatically dropped in the Arab world, and across the
Southern Mediterranean more broadly, in recent decades.
This has happened at a faster pace than Europes drop a
century or so ago.
While creating the conditions for the empowerment of
certain segments of society, globalization has also exposed
the shortcomings of Arab states, especially the sclerotic and
non-democratic nature of their political regimes and the
crony and still uncompetitive capitalist economies.

The globalization of the Middle East, therefore, has not

fostered stabilization and convergence. Rather, it has
spurred new competition and exacerbated fragmentation
even as societal trends have partly aligned with those of
Europe and those of other developed countries. As the
Mediterranean has slipped away from Europes influence,
geopolitical lines that had never fully disappeared have
become more marked.

Despite the fall of some of the longest-ruling regimes

under mounting popular pressure in 2011-12, the affected
countries have for the most part remained engulfed in
deep-rooted challenges. State structures, not just political
regimes, have failed to show the necessary resilience.
Even in cases in which a restoration of the old order has
been attempted, such as in Egypt after the short-lived
government of the Muslim Brotherhood, traditional state
elites are struggling to maintain a minimum of personal
and economic security for their citizens. Unlike before
the uprisings, they now know that the continuation of
their rule depends on a popular support that is no longer
a given. At the same time, new social contracts would
seem to require changes in the way wealth is produced and
distributed, which may be incompatible with the survival
of state entities as we know them.

While the United States under the Obama administration

has abandoned the transformative agenda for the Middle
East that had justified the Bushs eras (mis)adventures,
Russia has raised its regional profile again, returning to
the scene after a post-Cold War parenthesis. Moscows
influence is being felt in crises such as Syria and on key
regional files from the Iranian nuclear program to the
Middle East peace process.
The global Mediterranean of the 21st century is, therefore,
different from the European Mediterranean of the turn of
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the century, but also not so new in other respects. It resembles the past in that it reconnects the region to globalizing
tendencies that find their roots around its shores even
several centuries ago. It also looks familiar in that it once
again raises strategic questions that had accompanied the
bipolar era when the basin was part of a global competition
for influence.

the exception of Morocco, which is nonetheless itself

exposed to the threat of cross-regional Jihadist groups and
significant domestic pressures, the foundations of North
African states are shaking. Algeria is stitched together more
by a traumatic past than by a vision, let alone a plan, for its
future. Its internal stability is at stake as energy revenues
may fail to continue to provide for it. Libya is plunging into
chaos, divided as it is in different sub-regions in competition with each other for the control of the countrys
resources. A plurality of tribes and factions are fighting for
securing shares of an exploding criminal sector. Its already
weak state structures pulverized, the country increasingly
looks like a Mediterranean Somalia. As recent events show,
even Tunisia, for now the only successful example of a
democratic transition following the Arab Spring, is struggling to defend its fragile position as an island of reform
and moderate Islam.

Increasingly connected to adjacent regions, from the

Sahel to the Gulf, the Mediterranean space is at once more
interdependent and more competitive, more globalized but
increasingly plural. Extra-regional actors, from Russia to
the Gulf monarchies, from China to other emerging economies, are drawn to this conflict-prone yet resource-rich and
strategically located area. The growing role of non-state
entities, from terrorist groups to transnational communities such as those created by the movement of Mediterranean migrants and refugees, are also vivid illustrations of
the globalization of the Mediterranean.

The weakening of the Arab state system from west to east is

perhaps even more vividly evidenced by the regionalization
of terrorist organizations, from the spread of al Qaedaaffiliated groups to the more recent and possibly more
dangerous emergence of ISIS. The latter has deliberately set
out to redraw the map of the region, undoing the territorial
settlements reached under Sykes-Picot in the past century.
ISIS poses an existential threat to all established state entities, even as some of them may have been tempted to use
this force to their advantage as part of the proxy conflicts
in the region. The disintegrations of Iraq and Syria are for
now an extreme case, yet not an unimaginable outcome for
their neighbors.

An Arc of Crisis Stretching West to East

Against this backdrop, a second transformative trend is
the regionalization of insecurity along an arc of crisis that
extends from North Africa and the Sahel to the Levant.
While principally affecting the stability of the Arab state
system, the arc of crisis may reach Eurasia as well via
Turkey. One of the working assumptions of Mediterranean
strategy from a Western perspective has been the division of the Eastern from the Western Mediterranean. The
Levant has long been seen as an area of endemic strategic
competition due to Irans regional aims, the rivalry between
Turkey and Greece in the Aegean, Russias Mediterranean
projection from the Black Sea, and, of course, the ArabIsraeli conflict.

In this rapidly changing landscape, where some of the

internationally recognized borders no longer reflect
military and political realities, the risk of contagion is
real. Indeed, the arc of crisis extends well beyond the
MENA region to include the Sahel to the south, with its
own home-grown radicalized groups that are increasingly attracted to Middle East-based ideologies and
actors. To the east, the violent agenda of ISIS may find
supporters among Afghani tribes that have been engaged
in confronting external forces for decades. For their part,
enmeshed in the regional conflicts and divided among
themselves, the Gulf monarchies are bent to a dangerous
power game that could easily get out of control, ultimately
turning back on them.

By contrast, North Africa looked, until recently, like a less

contested place, at least comparatively. Post-Camp David
Egypt, post-civil war Algeria, Gaddafi-led Libya, and the
centuries-old Moroccan Kingdom seemed to provide a
belt of stability and security that had no equivalent in the
East. Despite the lack of Maghreb integration and lingering
tensions such as the dispute over Western Sahara, North
Africa was thought to offer a possible building block for a
future Mediterranean security community.
Although not fully disappearing, this distinction between
the Middle East and North Africa does not seem to carry
the same relevance in the present context. With perhaps

With resources far larger than those of other MENA

countries, the stability of regimes in the Gulf may nonethe4

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less be endangered by the deepening sectarian rifts that
the region increasingly hosts. Sunni Islamist groups that
are engaged in the local conflicts may play a critical role in
curbing the influence of Iran on the ground but ultimately
pose a threat to the Gulf state system and its rulers.

ISISs recruitment strongholds are Arab communities in

Europe that are plagued by the lack of economic opportunity stemming from the patent failure of national integration models.
Exploiting a widespread sentiment of frustration and anger,
ISISs declared goal is to mobilize forces that can undermine both the Arab and European orders from within.
While the outreach of the organization is becoming global,
as it was for al Qaeda, its goals are largely regional for now.
Europe is more clearly a target than was at the time of the
terrorist threat in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Turkey is also in a highly uncomfortable spot even though

until recently it had wanted to play the role of regional
leader, resurrecting hegemonic aspirations it had abandoned after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. As the prospect
for EU membership faded due to Europes reluctance and
lack of commitment, Ankara has increasingly looked at
the Middle East as a promising market and an alternative
venue for influence. Enthusiasm accompanied Turkeys
regional policy until the Arab Spring, which the countrys
Islamic elites embraced as an historic opportunity for
Turkey to lead the transformation of the region through
a mix of inspiration and active diplomatic and economic
engagement.

Every other adjacent region, from the Balkans to Central

Asia, is affected. Indeed, with insecurity spreading across
regions, separating the Mediterranean in compartmentalized sub-spaces, as is the case with the notion of an Eastern
and Western Mediterranean, is increasingly untenable.
A More Strategic Approach
Against this backdrop of long-term, possibly structural,
changes, the view is taking hold that the Mediterranean
region is doomed to fragmentation and polarization, and
will face years of instability and widespread conflict. The
EU is unavoidably linked to the regions insecurity because
it is geographically, economically, even demographically, a
part of the same space. The mixed flows of labor migrants,
refugees, trafficked human beings, and the new freelance terrorists storming across Mediterranean space are
different yet are all dramatic incarnations of the new Mediterranean interdependencies.

However, the raging conflict in neighboring Syria has

disrupted Turkeys plans in an irreparable way. Frustrated with a lack of Western support and upset with cozy
regional partnerships that fast unraveled, Turkey has been
increasingly dragged into Middle Eastern quick sands. Its
increasingly factional if not sectarian approach, whether by
choice or necessity, has undermined some of the bilateral
relationships that were part of Turkeys dense and muchvaunted web of regional connections. Ankaras relationships with both Teheran and Baghdad are complicated.
After the fall of President MohamedMorsi, the bilateral
relationship with Cairo has also sharply deteriorated.

At the same time, Europes response to these pan-Mediterranean dynamics can no longer be only the vacuous
attempt to build regional institutions derived from Europes
own internal processes and modeled after its own experience with integration. The Barcelona process approach of
projecting EU stability into the Southern Mediterranean
by transferring practices and exporting models has simply
become impossible in the present circumstances.

In the meantime, Turkeys relations with European countries and the United States have become more tense over
issues such as lack of alignment on Russia policy (Ankara
is not participating in the Western-led sanctions regime
following the annexation of Crimea) and what has come
across as less than full resolve in fighting groups such as
ISIS. While the Turkish state has showed a level of resilience that is incomparable with that of its Middle Eastern
neighbors, Turkish elites are by now aware of the challenges
posed by the collapse of Syria and Iraq, including that of
the revival of the Kurdish national question.

Even the most enthusiastic supporters of that experience

now recognize that it did not lead to the hoped for results
and that a Barcelona 2.0 or 3.0 (the policy was already
refurbished after the first decade of implementation in
the mid-2000s) would not do the job even if the necessary resources and political will could be found. Realism is
indeed becoming the new compass.

The arc of instability stretching from west to east is also

compounded by dots of crisis in the Euroatlantic and
Eurasian spaces as radicalized individuals associate with
terrorist networks that are plotting violent acts. Among
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The current review of the European security strategy and
the European Neighborhood Policy will most certainly go
in the direction of a more strategic approach to the region.
This approach will be, above all, a more differentiated
one. Among defining elements may be greater reliance on
bilateral relationships and a more targeted identification of
countries that are key to EU political and economic interests and others for which the EU interests are more derivative in nature.

the same agenda.1 Helping Southern Mediterranean countries strategically address key needs such as food security,
such as by exploring the creation of regional food banks
and supporting the modernization of the local agricultural
sector, should also be included in the more limited, yet
not more modest, people-oriented and broadly normative
agenda.
Finally, a more strategic approach hinges upon greater
alignment between the actions of the various EU countries
and EU institutions. It is in the nature of the European
project that EU institutions are often mandated to implement normative policies beyond the narrow confines of
the national interests of the EU member states. This cannot
mean, however, that Brussels is tasked with applying
schemes for the promotion of democracy or the circulation
of goods and people that EU member states are not ready
to or not interested in backing.

One of the limits of previous schemes was the tendency to

apply one-size-fits-all approaches to a plurality of Southern
Mediterranean countries whose economic weight and
strategic importance for Europe greatly differ. In todays
globalized Mediterranean, no MENA countries are mere
satellites of Europe as was implied in the EU-centric
European Neighborhood Policy. This is the case even as
security, commercial, and human ties remain very significant between Europe and these countries in ways that
extra-regional actors have yet to match.

The larger the discrepancy in the future between Brusselsled and national agendas, the wider and more macroscopic will be the gap between Europes declaratory policy
and its actual record, reinforcing the already widespread
perception that hypocrisy and double-standards dominate
Europes regional strategy. At a time of growing divides
within Europe, the coalescence of EU members states
around a well-defined and realistic policy for the Mediterranean becomes an imperative and may provide insurance
against further internal tensions.

Countries such as Tunisia and Morocco are indeed actively

pursuing stronger ties with the European market and have
in most recent years reconfirmed their interest in being
included in a broad definition of the Euro-Mediterranean
space. Others, from Algeria to Egypt, lack this European
vocation, Europe being one among other references. These
others are, on one hand, more narrowly focused on their
own domestic challenges and, on the other, more deeply
engaged in regional developments. Their respective engagements in Libya is one sign of this.

On the other hand, this more streamlined and realistic

approach will not necessarily be a more contained one.
In fact, unprecedented efforts and resources should be
invested in securing the survival of state systems that, if
they collapse, could send formidable shockwaves across
neighboring countries and regions.

A more strategic approach will also be one in which

traditional European normative aspirations are recalibrated toward more realistic goals. The EU should not
stop promoting political and economic reform, including
democratization, wherever and whenever circumstances
allow. Indeed, compared to the open-ended scenario of
2011, when a wave of change swept across the region in
unpredictable ways, the EU and Western partners can now
selectively invest in those transitions, such as Tunisias,
which have proved to have a fighting chance for success.

Indeed, the deteriorating security environment poses new

direct challenges to both Europe and the United States
but also potentially gives transatlantic partners greater
leverage in their dealings with Arab regimes. The latter are
fully aware of their limited resilience especially if external
support were to be withdrawn.

Faced with more basic challenges, from raging civil wars to

the weakening of state entities, the new normative agenda
should however largely refocus on fundamental objectives
such as containing humanitarian catastrophes and refugee
crises. Tackling the emerging issue of ungoverned spaces
and their negative spillovers could also be seen as part of

1 The idea to look at humanitarian assistance as part of the new EU normative

agenda was proposed during discussions at the Mediterranean Strategy Group on
December 3-5 in Naples.

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for Mediterranean cooperation. Less institutionalized fora
such as the 5+52 continue to provide important tools for
the exchange of security concerns, the sharing of information, and the exploration of joint strategies. While the
creation of new institutions should be discarded, ideas such
as the launching of a Conference for Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean (CSCM) could be revived.

New Convergence and Prospects for Transatlantic

Cooperation
These developments delineate a path of possible convergence between the United States and the EU. While never
developing a Mediterranean strategy as such over
the course of two centuries of Mediterranean engagement, Washington has arguably pursued a more strategic
approach to the region than Europes, certainly so from the
end of World War II onwards.

Conditions fundamentally differ between Europe in the

1970s, when the CSCE process started, and the Mediterranean region today. Nonetheless, a CSCM focused on
containing the erosion of the regional order would prove
to be a worthwhile initiative. The goals of limiting conflict,
reaffirming international borders, establishing muchneeded confidence-building mechanisms, ensuring access
to regional resources, protecting critical sea lanes, and
safeguarding fundamental human rights could be shared by
a plurality of actors.

Instead of investing in institutions and artificial regionbuilding, the United States has generally pursued a
security-oriented agenda, selectively engaging countries
bilaterally and more clearly differentiating between subregional dynamics and priorities. Washington has also
been characteristically more prone to look at Mediterranean dynamics in derivative ways by focusing on the
connections between the Mediterranean Basin and other
strategically relevant areas, in particular the Gulf but also
sub-Saharan Africa and the Greater Middle East.

Not all Mediterranean-based actors could be drawn to

it, while some extra-regional players that have kept a low
profile in Mediterranean cooperation, such as China, could
in time be engaged. Indeed, the initiative could serve as a
platform to try to reshape relations between strategic actors
currently on opposite sides of the confrontation, such as
the Gulf States and Iran.

Over the coming years, the EU could adopt a more American approach to the region to the extent that Brussels
would set aside the unrealistic goal of integrating a space
that is increasingly fragmented. At the same time, the
United States should Europeanize its approach by finally
adopting a Mediterranean strategy as such, proactively
working to streamline existing resources and creating
overlap between currently separate regional bureaus and
operational structures.

Russia could be included in the new effort. The interlinkage between European and Mediterranean security is
increasingly visible, and Moscow will have to be part of
any successful future Mediterranean security equation.
The tension between the status-quo elements (the respect
for sovereignty and territorial integrity) and the more
dynamic aspects of the Helsinki legacy (self-determination,
human rights) would undoubtedly also be on display in the
Mediterranean context, probably more vehemently so. The
goal for a CSCM process would be to avoid any unilateral
interpretation of the acceptable balance between these
principles while banning the use of force as a way to settle
possible clashes.

While keeping the focus on security, the United States

should also follow Europe in an approach to the terrorism
challenge that connects not only an understanding of the
phenomenon, but also the strategies to eradicate it and its
root causes. Many of the latter, from youth disenfranchisement to failed integration, have prominent and sometimes
distinctive Mediterranean features.
Indeed, growing strategic differentiation should not come
at the expense of understanding the commonalities and
many underlying similarities that still characterize Mediterranean societies, north and south, east and west, from
their not fully developed market economies to the rigidity
of state structures perpetuating an elite that is generally
adverse to change.

Security dialogue should be complemented by economic

cooperation. In the Mediterranean context, this should
start with energy cooperation, including acknowledging
the continuing role of traditional providers, bringing online
2 The Western Mediterranean Forum, commonly referred to as the 5+5 Dialogue, was
officially launched in Rome in 1990 as an informal sub-regional forum of like-minded
countries, geographically situated on the western rim of the Euro-Mediterranean littoral
and comprising of Algeria, France, Italy, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, and
Tunisia. Malta became a member in 1991.

Last but no less important, the United States could join

Europe in reviving some of the multilateral instruments
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new sources in the Eastern Mediterranean, and developing
renewables on an increasing scale.

unsuccessful transitions, but to focus on long-term stability

and development as the parameters for judging the pros
and cons of cooperation. While many parameters have
changed in recent years, some hard facts continue to hold
true: the least open regimes in the region are also those that
seem unable to provide any long-term stability and sustainable development for their societies. Transatlantic strategy
in the global Mediterranean would continue to stay on
their side only at its own, and growing, risk.

As the region on which the global financial crisis has had

the longest-lasting effect, the Mediterranean should see
growth as both a security and economic imperative. This
will mean maintaining the vision of a common Mediterranean market but in the meantime working more
concretely for the transformation of Arab countries into
fully functioning market economies. This is a goal that the
United States is already sustaining in some contexts, such
as Tunisia and Morocco, sometimes with stronger impetus
than its European counterparts.
Overall, prospects for the EU and the United States to work
out their past differences and choose a more coordinated
approach seem to be more encouraging now than at any
other point in the recent history of Mediterranean relations. The deteriorating security situation should lead to a
shared strategic approach and not a risky narrow focus on
the most pressing threats, such a counter-terrorism, which
would come at the expense of addressing the larger issues
outlined above, some of which have contributed to the
emergence of new realities, such as ISIS.

The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the

views of the author alone.

About the Author

Emiliano Alessandri is a non-resident senior transatlantic fellow with
GMF.

More critically, if the new Mediterranean agenda were to

be solely focused on counter-terrorism, partners could be
identified in local regimes that, by continuing to provide
inadequate responses to societal problems, will never be
able to absorb the bottom-up pressures to which they are
exposed and that groups such as ISIS are eager to exploit.

About GMF
The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) strengthens
transatlantic cooperation on regional, national, and global challenges
and opportunities in the spirit of the Marshall Plan. GMF contributes
research and analysis and convenes leaders on transatlantic issues
relevant to policymakers. GMF offers rising leaders opportunities
to develop their skills and networks through transatlantic exchange,
and supports civil society in the Balkans and Black Sea regions by
fostering democratic initiatives, rule of law, and regional cooperation. Founded in 1972 as a non-partisan, non-profit organization
through a gift from Germany as a permanent memorial to Marshall
Plan assistance, GMF maintains a strong presence on both sides of
the Atlantic. In addition to its headquarters in Washington, DC, GMF
has offices in Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, Ankara, Bucharest, and
Warsaw. GMF also has smaller representations in Bratislava, Turin,
and Stockholm.

The question of who is a partner will undoubtedly be

one of the continuing dilemmas for transatlantic partners
when operating in the region, from questions surrounding
the future of Turkey, to the unconditional support still
provided to some autocratic regimes, to the possible
game changer if Iran ceased to be treated as a pariah
state. The goal for transatlantic partners would be not so
much moving beyond the dichotomy between democratizing regimes and autocratic states, which should remain
relevant even in the more blurred environment created by