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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 03/03
Perejil/Leila and the Euro-Med Partnership
June 2002
Abstract
During the Spanish-Moroccan crisis over the Perejil/Leila islet both the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) have squarely supported Spanish sovereignty. They have completely ignored the special co-operation promoted with the Mediterranean countries from the mid-1990s onwards. This is particularly true with respect to the EU-initiated Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, whose ambitious agenda contemplates an articulated political and security agenda of collective co-operation with the Southern Mediterranean countries, including Morocco. For a number of reasons, the partners have failed to turn their aims into a practical reality. Nonetheless, co-operation is still on the agenda and the parties to the scheme are still apparently committed to it. It is true that one witnessed the same kind of response from the Arab side. The Arab League supported Moroccan claims just as unambiguously as the Western or European side did Spain. How can one explain that precisely at the time when the spirit of Euro-Med co-operation was most necessary it vanished?
