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Begin New Search Political Geography North Africa Author Richard Youngs

1. Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Need for Triangulation

Author:
Richard Youngs and Ana Echague
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
European Union policy towards the Middle East and North Africa suffers from geographic fragmentation and an increasing functional imbalance which reflects a growing trend towards securitisation. While policy towards the Mediterranean is highly institutionalised, the Gulf Cooperation Council states receive much less attention and policies towards Iran, Iraq and the occupied Palestinian territories exist in isolation. A narrow focus on an exclusionist approach to security has taken over to the detriment of political and economic concerns. The shortcomings in European foreign policy towards the broader Middle East in terms of lack of breadth and coherence need to be addressed in order to forge a more cohesive and effective policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Iraq, Europe, Iran, Middle East, and North Africa

2. Why the European Union Needs a 'Broader Middle East' Policy

Author:
Edward Burke, Ana Echagüe, and Richard Youngs
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
European foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a highly fragmented construction. Since the mid-1990s the EU's policies with Maghreb and Mashreq countries have been pursued under the rubric of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and now the Mediterranean Union. This plethora of highly institutionalised initiatives has been developed with negligible linkage to policy in the rest of the Middle East. Relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council remain low key and strikingly disconnected from the EMP. Contrary to its rhetorical emphasis on supporting regional integration around the world, the EU has failed to build its strategy towards Iran and Iraq into a regional security framework. Even more reproachable, given its credibility and influence in the economic sphere has been the EU's inability to foster regional economic integration between the Mediterranean and the Gulf.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, Arabia, and North Africa

3. The European Union and Democracy in the Arab-Muslim World

Author:
Richard Youngs
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Democracy should be conceived as an important element of European strategic policy towards North Africa and the Middle East, but the complex prerequisites to its stability- enhancing potentiality also recognised. While EU policy has come to incorporate such a perspective, its approach to democracy promotion in the Arab-Muslim world has remained tentative and nebulous in its conceptualisation of how stable and sustainable political change can best be encouraged. A summary of European democracy and human rights aid projects reveals the notable extent to which these have expanded, but also raises concerns over imbalances in the profile of EU political aid. In sum, this calls for a number of changes to EU policy that broaden the understanding of how different levels of policy instruments can dovetail together in a more comprehensive and sophisticated approach to democracy promotion.
Topic:
Democratization
Political Geography:
Middle East, Arabia, and North Africa