Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

Recent migration and other security crisis have made the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region one of the most problematic and challenging for Europe. The lack of effective decisions to solve it raises the question, weather EU has ever had any good strategy for the relations with this region. This article examines the path of “Euro-Med partnerships” and the recent developments within the EU’s external policy titled “Union for the Mediterranean”. Since 1995, when “Barcelona process” was established, the European Union has been developing economic and political relations with the Mediterranean countries in North Africa and Middle East (MENA) region. Within this period EU has introduced several initiatives focused on the same region including “Barcelona process”/ “Euro- Mediterranean Partnership”, “European neighborhood policy” and the newest one- the Union for the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, the results of the policies are far from satisfying the initial goals. Various institutional structures, which have been established for building the partnership, did not contribute much for settling the recent migration and asylum crisis in the EU either. This article analyzes the reasons and the main institutional frameworks paying attention on the goals’ set and comparing it with the achievements of the EU policies in MENA region. It is stated that EU stance is rather based on “low politics” issues leaving aside the “high politics” questions for many years. We argue that the EU’s external policies directed towards the Mediterranean region, namely the Union for Mediterranean (UfM), did not live up to its expectations and is more focused on low politics, topic-specific issues, rather than solving the major political challenges of the Mediterranean region.