Bridges and Barriers: The European Union's Mediterranean Policy, 1961-1998 by Filippos Pierros & Jacob Meunier & Stan Abrams

Author:Filippos Pierros & Jacob Meunier & Stan Abrams [Pierros, Filippos & Meunier, Jacob & Abrams, Stan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780429651458
Google: 80ufDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 46042234
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

In the early 1990s, the Community made a great effort to clearly define its objectives in the Mediterranean region and to pump more funding into specifically targeted projects; as proof of the EC’s new commitment, nearly three times as much funding reached the TMCs under the fourth financial protocols than under the third. ‘With the introduction of… [the RMP] and its innovative approach focusing on structural adjustment and cooperation with all the Mediterranean non-member countries and territories as a group, the Community has plugged the cooperation gaps that had become apparent during the implementation of earlier financial protocols’, the Commission boasted.159 By this measure, the Redirected Mediterranean Policy may be regarded as an improvement over its predecessor. The RMP ‘shows, if anything, a shift in power towards a more self-confident Europe. Europe has increased its aid to the region and developed a more coherent picture of the types of economies and polities it wishes to support there’.160

In addition to greater funding, the TMCs were given free access to the EC market for industrial goods and modestly improved access for agricultural products. The results were encouraging. By the mid-1990s, the TMCs were sending a greater share of their total exports to the Community in the form of manufactures than ever before. Morocco and Tunisia boasted the most impressive gains: between 1979 and 1993, they increased exports of industrial goods from 24 per cent to 66 per cent and from 40 per cent to 77 per cent, respectively. Turkey and Israel also reached or surpassed the 70 per cent mark.

But not all of the news was good. Many of the benefits from increased aid were mitigated by the Gulf War, the emergence of the Single Market in January 1993, the revival of trade with Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism, the new round of enlargements, the Community’s reluctance to liberalise its agriculture and textile sectors, and the TMCs’ own protectionist policies. Under these circumstances, admitted the Commission, ‘aid addressed important sectoral needs (vocational training, rural development, etc.) but did not have a significant macroeconomic effect’.161 In the 1990s, the economies of many of the TMCs faltered and immigration pressures continued to build. As the African Economic Digest put it tersely, ‘A different pattern of traffic across the Mediterranean is emerging: aid going south and immigrants going north’.162

The RMP, for all its good intentions, did not go far enough towards fulfilling the expectations of the peoples it sought to help, many of whom registered their protest by heading north. In 1994, as the immigration question again loomed large on the European political landscape, the Commission called for another fresh start to EC-TMC relations and the creation of a ‘Euro-Mediterranean Partnership’. Whether this policy would be a new departure or—as Tovias opined—déjà vu, remained to be seen.

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