Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online Volume 1, Issue 1 | Page 15

2/2/2016

Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online

The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative: Competing
or Complementary Projects?
By: Aylin Unver Noi
The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative: Competing or
Complementary Projects? Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2011. 280pp. $70. ISBN: 9780761855682.
Volume: 1 Issue: 1
April 2013
Review by
Burçak Keskin-Kozat, PhD
Associate Director, Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies & the Mediterranean Studies Forum Stanford University
California
This book’s title sums up its major question and hints at its major conclusion. The author analyses in depth the two post-Cold War projects
advanced by the European Union and the United States in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean—namely, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership
(EMP), and the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative (BMENA). The two projects by and large have similar objectives, but they also
embody the competing interests and divergent approaches held by the E.U. and U.S. policy makers. In short, the answer to the question posed in the
book’s subtitle is that BMENA and EMP are both complementary and competing projects. Yet, the changing international as well as domestic
dynamics have a transformative impact on the two projects and pose an interesting test for the future of the Transatlantic relationship in general.
In reaching this conclusion, the author reviews the two projects with respect to their common objectives (specifically, political & security;
economic/financial; and social/cultural/human) and discusses each project’s weaknesses and strengths. Her analysis is woven with an historical
overview of the region’s post-1945 geopolitics. She points out that EMP and BMENA illustrate the major difference between the E.U. and U.S.
foreign policy: Civilian power, practiced by the European Union, emphasizes gradual transformation through regional cooperation and partnership.
In contrast, military power, exerted by the United States, relies on rapid transformation through military pre-emption and unilateral action. The
author argues that the difference stems from the two actors’ respective geographical proximity and their respective historical, economic, and
demographical links to the region, as well as their respective military capabilities. She notes that the Obama Presidency represents a policy shift
from military power to smart power in the U.S. foreign policy. Moreover, the emergence of Brazil, Russia, India, and China as strong global actors,
she argues, compels the United States and the European Union to align their policies in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean and thereby
highlights the complementary aspects of EMP and BMENA.
The book presents an extensive overview of EMP and BMENA, supported by aggregated statistics and detailed appendices (pp.195-254). It also
provides an extensive overview of the existing literature on the topic. Specialists will greatly enjoy finding in this book lengthy quotations from,
and detailed summaries of the existing primary and secondary sources on the E.U. and U.S. policy in the region. Non-specialists may however get
easily lost in the rich detail and abbreviation-loaded narrative. Yet, the highly structured nature of the analysis makes it easier for the average reader
to follow the major argument.
The book’s major weakness is its heavy focus on high politics. This is particularly problematic when the author discusses the reception of EMP and
BMENA and limits her analysis to the views expressed by policy makers or scholars. The reader does not hear the voices of those on the ground
such as actual administrators or recipients of the EMP or BMENA projects. Nor does the reader get a detailed account of how these policies were
interpreted by different audiences in the European Union or the United States. A discussion of these views may further substantiate the author’s
discussion of the two projects’ weaknesses and strengths and may also help better assess the future of the Transatlantic relationship.
This book may be of interest to policy makers, policy analysts, scholars of international relations, and foreign policy enthusiasts. It is a good
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