Table of Contents

III. KEY ISSUES IN NORTH-SOUTH RELATIONS
North-South relations in the western Mediterranean are being
driven by a number of functional issues, some new, some longstanding
but rapidly evolving. As Portugal, with its European
and Atlantic partners, considers priority areas for engagement
across the Mediterranean, these issues will inevitably form a substantial
part of the agenda 17 . Taken together, they are shaping
the strategic environment facing north and south in the region.
Migration and Integration
For decades, analysts have anticipated large-scale
migration flows from south to north across the
Mediterranean, driven by stark economic disparities.
The short maritime border in the western
Mediterranean is the second widest economic
gap in the world (the border between North and
South Korea is the first) 18 . Pervasive insecurity
and the perception of opportunity are potent
drivers of migration across the Mediterranean.
That said, migration flows in the region have not
evolved in quite the way foreseen. Migration from
North Africa to Europe, including southern
Europe has developed in an evolutionary rather
than dramatic fashion, with increasing numbers
of migrants opting to remain in southern Europe,
particularly Spain and Italy, rather than pressing
on to northern Europe 19 . The most dramatic and
challenging movements have come from the
Balkans and the Adriatic, and increasingly, from
17 For Portuguese
perspectives on the
evolving strategic
environment
in the Mediterranean
and the Maghreb,
see Luís de Medeiros
Ferreira, “Portugal
e a Influência
Estratégica do
Magrebe”,
Nação e Defesa,
No. 78,
April-June, 1996;
O Futuro do
Mediterrâneo
no Contexto das
Relações Norte Sul
(Lisbon: Ministério
da Defesa Nacional,
9 March 2004);
and Brandão
Ferreira, “História
das Relações Luso-
-Magrebinas:
Uma Leitura
Estratégica”,
Jornal do Exército,
No. 521, August-
-September, 2003.
[33]
18 Andres Bassols,
“The Euro-
-Mediterranean
Partnership”,
in Andres Bassols
et al., Towards
a Common
European-American
Strategy
for Democracy
in the Middle East:
The Role of Civil
Society Institutions
(Washington:
Friedrich Ebert
Stiftung, 2004),
p. 9.
19 See analyses
in Maria Lucinda
Fonseca and
Russell King, eds.,
“Migration in the
Mediterranean:
Bridges and
Margins”,
Finisterra,
Vol. XXXIX,
No. 77,
Lisbon 2004.