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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 03/03
EU Security Towards the Mediterranean - The Role of Southern Europe
July 2000
Abstract
In the last two years, the EU has begun to strengthen its security and defence integration with a view to acquiring new capabilities in crisis management at both the European and Atlantic level. To that end, it is in the process of reinvigorating its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and developing the newly-born Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP).
There is no doubt that policies towards the Mediterranean and, more in general, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) will constitute an important dimension of this new EU process. At the same time, Southern Europe is certainly bound to play a role with respect to this process.
In view of these developments, the question the paper tries to answer is whether Southern European interests and roles with respect to the Mediterranean and, to a lesser extent MENA, are helping or hindering the ongoing process aimed at upgrading the EU’s security role by strengthening CFSP and promoting CESDP.
To respond to this question, the paper takes four issues into consideration: (a) immigration, as a security issue affecting civil societies; (b) Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and missile proliferation, as a military security issue; (c) the kind of security co-operation agenda that fits with the actual political conditions prevailing in the Mediterranean; (d) the implementation of peace support operations (PSOs) and crisis management.
