Regional Patterns of Cooperation

Abstract

Cooperation on human rights and democracy between the EU and its Southern neighbours takes place within an institutional framework developed by the EU in its various, overlapping external policies. The EU’s general commitment to promote democracy and human rights in external relations brought the topic onto the agenda of Euro-Mediterranean relations in the early 1990s. Ever since, it has been the driving force behind advancing bilateral cooperation on these issues by creating an increasingly institutionalized regional framework with highly standardized provisions applicable to all countries. It remains a framework defined through a set of instruments rather than strategic guidelines or clear objectives. In order to promote democratic reforms and the respect for human rights in its Mediterranean partners, the EU has always sought their active engagement in the joint implementation of democracy assistance, political dialogue, and political conditionality. Observers have often criticized the EU’s ‘one size fits all’ and overall ‘positive’ or ‘cooperative’ approach to promoting democracy and human rights in the Mediterranean (and elsewhere) as not flexible enough to address the specific situation in individual countries, and as particularly problematic when dealing with non-democratic regimes (Borzel and Risse 2009; Santiso 2003; Youngs 2001c).