The year 2014 was hoped by many to provide a rare opportunity for the unlocking of the Cyprus negotiations. Yet initial optimism proved unfounded.
Back in 2003 at the Thessaloniki Summit, the Member States offered their “unequivocal support to the European perspective” of the Balkan countries and baldly stated that the future of the region lied “within the European Union.”
The global economic crisis has led to a much broader crisis in Europe. Not surprisingly, the situation in the European semi-periphery and periphery continues to be even worse.
At the start of 2014, as the run-up to the May European Parliament elections started to gain speed, an unprecedented nervousness prevailed amongst EU political elites.
The Mediterranean Basin is one of the main migration arenas in the world. It is also, however, one of the most border-controlled areas, since it constitutes the outer border of the European Union on its southern side.
Regional integration has a major role to play in expanding trading capacities and facilitating competition and innovation. With the elimination of market-access barriers, the driving force is the increase in trade within regions rather than across th...
At the onset of the 1990s, an atmosphere of euphoria and hope emerged on the international arena. Based on the will to create a pacific, stabilised Mediterranean area, the EU lent the Mediterranean Basin the full attention it deserved.
This article identifies why it has been so hard to make progress in this area for the last twenty years and, on that basis, outlines certain steps that could reverse the trend.
Looking back at history, those of us who have been modestly advocating a process of Euro-Mediterranean integration for more than 25 years now might be tempted to feel somewhat frustrated.
As an alienated, and alienating, besieged structure, the Arab State is in crisis. This crisis is not, however, Lowi’s “fiscal crisis,” but a deep and chronic one.
