The EU's normative actorness in the Southern Mediterranean after the Cold War: A neo-colonial approach?

Institutionalised relations between (EU)rope and the Mediterranean Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries stretch as far back as the origins of the European integration process. The 1957 Treaty of Rome establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) included a protocol providing for the conclusion of economic agreements with two – newly – former colonies, Tunisia and Morocco, while Algeria would remain an integral part of France until it gained independence in 1962. Challenging the optimistic narrative of post-War Europe as a “virgin birth” (Nicolaïdis, 2014, p. 283), a strand of literature has regarded the early decades of European integration as marking the transition from “the imperial policies of single European states during colonial times into the quasi-imperial policy of the common European bloc” (Del Sarto, 2021, p. 50; see also Hansen, 2002; Hansen and Jonsson, 2014). From this perspective, the first agreements with Southern Mediterranean partners, granting unbalanced trade concessions and limited market access, reflected the attempts of once colonial powers – notably France – to maintain their grip on former North African possessions. In the second half of the Cold War, the Europeanisation of post-colonial practices would result not only from the desire of EEC members to protect their economic interests but also from security concerns related to the destabilisation of the MENA area, i.e., the Arab-Israeli conflict and its spill-over effects, as well as coups and civil wars – from Qadhafi’s revolution in 1969 up to the Islamist electoral victory in Algeria in 1991. Seen in this light, the 1972 Global Mediterranean Policy (GMP) and the formulation of updated cooperation schemes throughout the 1980s would be emblematic of a neo-colonial logic whereby the European Community selectively sought to transfer its rules and practices to peripheral areas for the sake of Europe’s security, stability, and economic benefits. Such an approach would become increasingly evident in the discourse and practice of the European Union (EU) in the 1990s and 2000s. This period saw the launch of new cooperation initiatives, notably the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) and the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Drawing on the above discussion, academic literature, and institutional documents, the present contribution aims to investigate the projection and the reception of the EU’s approach towards the Arab Mediterranean since the end of the Cold War. In the first section, it will be argued that the Union, by virtue of its self-representation as a “Normative Power” (Manners, 2002), endeavoured to advance its own construction of the area, with somewhat controversial outcomes. The second part will present concrete examples of counter-narratives to the EU’s posture developed by two North African partners and former colonies – Algeria and Tunisia – focusing on the post-colonial essence of the European policies and the tension between supposed universalism and cultural relativism.