A Strategy for Conflict Prevention and Management in the Mediterranean

Abstract

The author states that the conflicts in the Mediterranean are put down to interrelated factors –frontier disputes, ethnic-cultural rivalries, low-intensity violence– that make them appear to be “intractable conflicts”, specific to the area, and to which it cannot be automatically applied the model of conflict prevention and management that marked East-West relations during the Cold War. But the author’s analysis goes farther: Biad argues that the initiatives of conflict prevention and management have not done well because of the inadequate definition of objectives (Euro-Arab Dialogue, CSCM,Mediterranean Forum), as well as for the discrimination against some of the southern members and the lack of clearly identified principles and rules for a security dialogue (WEU, NATO, and the OSCE). The Barcelona Process appears to offer a much broader framework as it does underline the need for common action in the prevention of conflicts based on the principles of transparency and sufficiency. Nevertheless, after an analysis of both which focuses on the military dimension of security, the author reminds us that the Barcelona Declaration does not include institutional mechanisms for the application of these principles.