Europe and the Mediterranean: When obsession for security misses the real world

Abstract

Security (fear of immigration, Islamism and terrorism) has been the main factor in the European decision to launch a protracted and complex program of cooperation and development with the Arab Mediterranean countries. The main partners of the European Union countries were the Arab authoritarian regimes, seen as the best bulwark against the “Islamist threat”. Support for the development of a civil society that could in the long term creates the conditions for a transition towards democracy was mostly subcontracted to NGO’s or independent Foundations and restricted to technical issues. But the Arab Spring showed the failure of this policy: secularism is not a prerequisite for the rise of a democratic movement, islamist parties should be engaged and not shunned, and new patterns of migration (mobility instead of immigration) should be acknowledged.