Security and Political Stability in the Mediterranean

Abstract

The author revises with a critical eye the treatment given the issue of security during the Euro-Mediterranean process from the Declaration of Barcelona to the Conference at Malta. According to Marquina, no idea of security exists which gives backbone to theEuro-Mediterranen process and the documents themselves contain incoherencies and significant imprecisions, especially regarding the concepts of cooperative security, preventative diplomacy and ‘good neighbor’ relations. These principles appear to be rather underexplained in both their conceptual and operative aspects. On one hand, the information about matters that affect security is exchanged on both a voluntary and official basis and can be, as such, thus opaque and not always reliable; on the other hand, the issues thataffect security are so wide-ranging that the operative approach - the communications network, mechanisms for early-warning, the conciliation and peaceful resolution of controversies - seems hardly realistic. With respect to confidence-building measures, the author considers that these should be linked to arms control agreements, which are more in accord with the stated objectives of defense sufficiency and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Marquina also maintains that the role of civil society and the importance of cultural dialogue - both fundamental to conflict prevention - have not been reinforced even though the principal problems of security in the region are due to structural imbalances –military, economical, political– and, precisely the disparities amongcultures. In this sense, the EU states might consider putting forward unilateral policies that restrict such disparities, provided that a certain reciprocity of policy is put forth from the southern states in the Mediterranean.