The EU, Middle Eastern powers and milieu-shaping in the ‘shared’ Arab Mediterranean neighbourhood: a story of mutual neglect

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe EU and the six Gulf Cooperation Council member states have been engaged in milieu-shaping in their shared Arab Mediterranean neighbourhood. This article argues that this engagement has taken place in a disconnected way rather than in a coordinated fashion. The majority of GCC countries have been guided by neo-realist considerations with a focus on short- and mid-term gains and occasional recourse to hard power. In contrast, the EU, through its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), has long tried to circumvent geopolitics by focusing on long-term normative milieu-shaping, drawing on a mix of normative soft power tools. However, since the 2015 ENP review, this ambition is no longer central to EU foreign policy considerations. Instead, EU milieu-shaping goals are increasingly underpinned by neo-realist-inspired security concerns. Thus, an interest-based convergence between the EU and GCC countries is emerging in so far as also the EU is regarding its neighbourhood increasingly less through the prism of normative objectives. Yet, as will be demonstrated, and despite the EU's growing awareness for the necessity of cooperating with other powers in addressing an unstable neighbourhood, this convergence is unlikely to generate a shift from mutual neglect to systematic collaboration between the parties in their shared neighbourhood.