The European Union and the Arab world : from the Rome treaty to the « Arab spring »

Abstract

For many Europeans, the Arab World is looked at, at best, as an oil well and a huge market, and, at worst, as a turbulent and dangerous environment. Thus, access to oil, market penetration, and security interests have largely driven European policies towards this region. Under different denominations and umbrellas, European policies in the past 65 years pursued the same objectives: energy, market, security. This has been the case of the Mediterranean Global policy (1972-1992), the Euro-Arab Dialogue (1974-1989), the Renewed Mediterranean Policy (1990-1996), the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (1995-2008), the European Neighborhood Policy (2004-2012) and finally the Union for the Mediterranean (2008-2012). Sometimes, two or three overlapping policies were conducted at the same time.