The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership: Implementation of the Barcelona Process in the Maghreb
The Barcelona Process, signed in 1995 between the European Union and twelve Mediterranean partner-states, calls for the signatories to create the largest prospective free trade area in the world by 2010, which would cover nearly all matters of trade of manufactured products and most agricultural issues as well. To achieve this, the partner states are called on to seek bilateral relations with the EU and also among each other in terms of economic cooperation, so as facilitate a shared culture of trade. The Maghreb region of North Africa, containing three partne-states of the Barcelona Process, is particularly interesting to analyze, due to its common political, economic, historical, and cultural characteristics. The main motive for conducting research on the given topic is the lack of scholastic investigation on the effectiveness of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, and how it affects its North African member states. My research has led me to analyze the degree of implementation that the Maghreb partners have implemented the Barcelona Process, and to this degree I have concluded the following: the Maghreb partner-states only implement policy that direct concerns their respective regime securities. These include aspects of the economic realm, as well as strengthened security measures. When concerning democracy and the development of civil society, policy is largely ignored or implemented only in a cosmetic fashion. This is due to the fact that these mandates do not necessarily strengthen the current authoritarian regimes but rather can enact the opposite, a greater level of instability, as perceived by the regime leaders.
School:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Department:
Political Science
Research Advisor:
Todd Allee
Department of Research Advisor:
Political Science
Year of Publication:
2004