The Mediterranean Energy Relations after the Arab Spring: Towards a New Regional Paradigm?

Abstract

The revolts spread across the Mediterranean region between 2010 and 2011, have introduced a series of political, socio-economic and security changes that could impact on the nature of energy relations in the region. During the last decades, indeed, regional energy cooperation has been based on strong bilateral ties between the regimes in place in energy producing countries and a limited group of southern European states, leaving limited room for the active engagement of the EU in this domain. While so far the changes triggered by the protests have had partial impact on the traditional intergovernmental energy cooperation models in place in the Mediterranean –if coupled with energy trends emerging at the national, regional and global level– they could eventually contribute to create a new energy paradigm in the region.