The future of the Euro-Mediterannean security dialogue

XIII. Developing coordination between the EMP and NATO’s Mediterranean dialogue
Thanos Dokos 1
Although Russia may be resurfacing, not as a threat, but as a security concern, and the Balkans
are still unstable, NATO’s and Europe’s attention will increasingly be shifting towards the
Mediterranean. Almost all of the risks referred to in the Alliance’s New Strategic Concept are
present in a more or less acute form in the Mediterranean.
There is a very lively debate under way concerning Europe’s new defence identity.
Whatever the final outcome of this debate, and one should not expect any concrete results in the
near future, we cannot afford to “Europeanize” Mediterranean security efforts. The US has what
it perceives as vital interests in the Mediterranean, and so does the EU 2 . Therefore, both the EU
and the US must remain involved and work together to protect their interests and project stability.
The critical question is “what are the modalities of cooperation and the division of labour”.
Nor we can afford to “northernize”, if I may use this term, Mediterranean security. We
need the active participation of countries in the southern rim of the Mediterranean Sea if we wish
for our efforts to succeed in the long term. Otherwise the whole exercise is futile.
XIII.1 Regional cooperation: problems and prospects
The end of the Cold War has lifted many of the constraints on regional cooperation in the
Mediterranean. There are several initiatives under way, including the Mediterranean Dialogues of
NATO 3 and the Western European Union, the OSCE Initiative and the Euro-Mediterranean
Partnership. The number of initiatives raises the issue of cooperation between organisations
(interlocking or “interblocking” organisations). Antagonism and overlap between those
organisations may be unavoidable, but should be kept to a minimum. The fact, however, that
there is no hierarchical order among the initiatives makes coordination even more difficult.
The relative lack of success in efforts for regional co-operation in the Mediterranean can
be attributed to a number of factors, including the following:
1. The existence of the Arab-Israeli conflict (and to a much lesser extent other conflicts
such as the Greek-Turkish one) which frustrated efforts to explore cooperative
arrangements in CSBM and arms control fields;
2. Some of the rivalries and conflicts in the region are overlapping with out-of-region
antagonisms and conflicts, complicating even more the efforts for conflict resolution and
co-operation;
3. There is a relative lack of south-south relations;
1 Director of Studies, Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), Athens.
2 Including protection of energy supplies, prevention of mass migration and the spread of religious extremism,
prevention of the proliferation of WMD, support for friendly regimes, etc.
3 On NATO’s Mediterranean Initiative see for instance: Nicola de Santis, ‘The Future of NATO’s Mediterranean
Initiative’, NATO Review, no.1, Spring 1998; Larrabee, Green, Lesser & Zanini, NATO’s Mediterranean Initiative.
Policy Issues and Dilemmas, Santa Monica, RAND, 1998; Alberto Bin, ‘Strengthening Cooperation in the
Mediterranean: The Contribution of the Atlantic Alliance’, presentation at the 1999 International Halki Seminars,
organised by the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)
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