The New Eastern Mediterranean Transformed

For Greece in the twenty-first Century the greatest opportunities and dangers will emanate from the Eastern Mediterranean. Athens views the region as a source of instability linked to waves of refugees, failing states, potential Islamic terrorist attacks, increasing Great Power competition and catastrophic wars. The situation is compounded by what is perceived to be an increasingly authoritarian, unpredictable, and revisionist Turkey. These developments have elicited a national strategy that enjoys wide bi-partisan and popular support and is based on three main pillars. First, closer economic, military, security and political relations with Israel supported by the launching of trilateral initiatives with Israel and Cyprus and Egypt and Cyprus. Second, a deepening military and political relationship with the US as evinced by the signing of the Mutual Defense Cooperation Agreement in 2020 and the passing by the US Congress of the Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act of 2019; and finally, the pursuit of energy projects such as the EastMed natural gas pipeline, participation in regional energy organizations like the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum, hydrocarbon exploration within Greece, and possibly proposing a new regional institutional architecture.

The chapter sheds light on the EU-Eastern Mediterranean complex relations highlighting the challenges and the dilemmas faced by the EU over time. Based on the EU actorness literature, the chapter explores the main ΕU foreign policy outcomes, namely diplomatic, economic, security and military responses developed within multilateral and bilateral arrangements, across policy sectors. Regional dynamics following the Arab uprisings, conflicts and the security and migration crises are also examined as crucial factors shifting EU priorities and policies. In this spectrum, these parameters are also significant changing factors not only for the EU foreign policy agenda but also for the EU’s own transformation from a regulatory power to a (geo)political Union, posing EU sovereignty and strategic autonomy at the centre of its agenda.

This chapter advances three arguments about Euroscepticism. First, using Israel as a case study we describe its alliances with Eurosceptic political actors, claiming that while each side hopes to benefit from these alliances to advance particular interests, the attraction among the actors are based on ideological affinities that do not align with the norms informing EU policies. If these norms become more contested, it may make it more difficult to construct a ‘normative power’ based approach in EU foreign policy, hence alleviating external pressures, in our case directed against Israel. Second, we reveal how Euroscepticism can be used by third parties in the Eastern-Mediterranean as an instrument for shaping EU foreign policy, showing how Israel exploited the Eurosceptic proclivities of an EU member state to alter the conclusions of the Foreign Affair Council. Finally, we expose how this strategy produces a political paradox. By allowing itself to become an instrument deployed by a third party, the Eurosceptic member state also agrees to be pushed back into the fold of the EU apparatus, thus reconstituting itself as an internal actor which has stakes in the process and is willing to play by the rules of the game.

The objective of this article is to draw a lesson from the EU-Israeli relations in the field of higher education, to reflect on the latest inter-national developments in the East Mediterranean area. The article examines the Israeli perceptions towards the Bologna Process and higher education developments in Europe, as well as outline its reactions to it. Through interviews with policy-makers and a qualitative analysis of official documents and political discussions, the article also follows how the response to Bologna in Israel has developed, and how the Bologna Process was perceived in Israel. Relying on the theoretical frameworks of normative power and external perceptions, the article elaborates how the Bologna Process’ trajectory in Israel reflects a wider picture of EU-Israeli relations, and Israeli perceptions of Europe and the EU. The discussion elaborates on how this trajectory reflects on the latest development in the East Mediterranean area, and the strengthening political ties between Greece, Cyprus and Israel.

Turkey is a critical actor in multiple regions including Europe, Middle East, and Central Asia. As a relatively new region of reference, Eastern Mediterranean is no exception. Turkey, under the leadership of President Tayyip Erdoğan, has been pursuing an aggressive foreign policy that aims to capitalize on the newly discovered natural gas resources and the potential opportunities these resources will provide to the region’s countries. This foreign policy has caused tensions with Greece and other countries that are party to the existing formal and informal arrangements in the region. This chapter provides a background to Turkey’s ambitions in the region and ties the regional endeavors of Turkey to internal and external sources of insecurity for Turkey and Erdoğan, including economic indicators, changing demographics, the rise of the opposition in domestic politics, the challenges associated with the EU membership process, and concerns about other regional conflicts.

The discovery of significant oil and gas deposits in the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of Israel, Egypt, and Cyprus, and the alleged deposits in Greece, could potentially provide the European Union with an additional energy source that will contribute to the diversification, security, and resilience of Europe’s energy supplies. Yet energy developments in the region have raised a number of legal and geopolitical challenges, mirroring the antagonistic and often turbulent relations amongst states in the region. This chapter provides an overview of the hydrocarbon discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean with the aim to explore the conditions under which countries have shaped their energy policies in the broader context of their national strategies and account for the EU’s strategic involvement in the region. The analysis highlights the legal, geopolitical as well as security concerns preoccupying stakeholders in the region and examines the prospects and limitations of the Eastern Mediterranean energy resources reaching Europe.

The region of the Eastern Mediterranean has played a major role in European Energy Security for more than a century initially as a major oil transit zone for exports from the Middle East and subsequently as a significant natural gas exporter in its own right. The region’s energy security evolution was always “bedeviled” by significant geopolitical risk which was endemic to the region and which led to very serious supply/transit crises that negatively affected both the European and the global economy while altering the regional balance of power. Since 2011 the partial retrenchment of US influence from the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East created a power vacuum which several revisionist powers both from within and outside the region attempted to fill. Of these revisionisms the most dangerous to the region’s energy development and regional stability is the one promoted by Turkey's President Reccep Tayyip Erdogan. The paper tracks the evolution of Turkish revisionism as it challenged the interests of core regional players from the UAE, Egypt and Israel while focusing on the more recent developments vis-à-vis Cyprus and Greece. It also evaluates the importance of regional energy cooperation dynamics that currently exclude Turkey as a catalyst for the emergence of counter-coalitions to Erdogan’s neo-imperialism by focusing on the East Med Gas Pipeline project.

The gas developments in Eastern Mediterranean facilitate discussions on potential regional cooperation, but as well as on strengthening political tensions. Although energy can be seen as a facilitator on resolving regional political disputes, recent illegal drilling activities by Turkey on the Exclusive Economic Zone of Cyprus offset any relevant progress. On the other hand, regional activities, such as the establishment of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum by the energy ministers of seven countries, pave the way on the formation of regional institutional capability for cooperation on the energy issues. This chapter aims at presenting the European perspective on the energy developments in Eastern Mediterranean and South East Europe. It presents key elements of the European energy policy, highlighting the importance of Projects of Common Interest. However, the chapter comments on the suitability of Cost Benefits Analysis, providing a review of alternative approaches and proposing an optimization model for an integrated natural gas and power systems planning. Such model, requiring comprehensive information on the European energy system, would be able to provide a robust assessment of critical energy projects. It would be able to identify if there are bottlenecks among the different regions in the EU and providing useful insights to the decision makers, involved companies and market participants on the bankability and viability of critical infrastructure.

The aim of this research is to analyze the trajectory followed by EU institutions for the complete securitization of irregular migration, beginning from the securitization of European discourse and reaching up the militarization of European policy. In this paper, we argue that, not until the recent refugee crisis, the European institutions have ultimately securitized the subject of irregular migration. Indeed, the refugee crisis provoked the fulfillment of all two specifications of the securitization theory, namely the securitization of the discourse and the legitimation of the discourse by people, and finally, the implementation of extraordinary measures. Since 2013, EU institutions and policy makers, has regarded the influx of irregular migrants such a major security problem that evolved the EU’s migration strategy towards militarized measures which included the decisive reinforcement of FRONTEX, the deployment of specialized naval and militarized missions in Mediterranean and the cooperation with NATO forces. To prove the acceleration of securitization migration in the EU, we perform discourse analysis on EU documents from 2013 until the end of October 2017. The results of our research reveal that the European institutions intensified their securitized discourse as the crisis reached its peak point in 2015–2016. We, then, assess the subsequent change of European policy of irregular migration towards militarization by analysing its strategy on the external border controls. Finally, we conclude that the militarization of the European policy towards irregular migration has been correlated with the intensive securitization of European discourse which legitimized extraordinary measures to be adopted by the European institutions against the migration and refugee flows.

Mass migration through the Central Mediterranean route represents a challenge for the security of the European Union, Usually the EU defines itself as a normative foreign policy actor, but is it a valid self-definition in the case of tackling migration through the Central Mediterranean? The EU have been trying to handle migration with several civilian and military missions which pertain to different policy areas where different rules apply to decision making. So far reconciling the member states’ interest proved to be difficult, thus the EU faces internal challenges either regarding its naval operations in the Mediterranean Sea, or regarding the question of Libya. In this chapter we analyse Frontex operations Triton and Themis, and CSDP operations EUBAM Libya, EUNAVFOR MED Sophia and Irini. Our main focus is on examining whether the European Union’s communication and actions regarding these missions are in line, or a decoupling can be observed. We argue that normative aspirations of the Union have been side-lined by security and stability concerns, thus a light shift from normative power towards a pragmatist power can be observed in the case of the Central Mediterranean.

The purpose of this article is to reflect on two judgments rendered by the European Court of Justice, namely X. and X. v. Belgium, and Al Chodor, both decided in March 2017, which show a difference in the position of the Court concerning the application of human rights to migrants outside and inside the borders of the EU. The first case concerned Syrian migrants who had applied for humanitarian visas at the Belgian embassy in Lebanon. The Court argued that, since the applications for visas on humanitarian grounds were made with a view to applying for asylum in Belgium and thereafter to being granted a residence permit with a period of validity exceeding 90 days, the applications fell entirely within the scope of national law, and that the provisions of the Charter of fundamental rights of the EU did not apply to it. The Court departed from the opinion of Advocate General Mengozzi, who invoked the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the non-refoulement principle to support his argument that the values of the European Union should be protected both within the territory of the EU member states as well as in their relations with third states. Al Chodor refers to the conditions of detention of asylum seekers within the EU pending a transfer to another Member State. The Court was asked whether Article 2 (n) and Article 28 (2) of the Dublin III Regulation had to be interpreted as requiring Member States to establish, in a national law, objective criteria underlying the reasons for believing that an applicant for international protection who is subject to a transfer procedure may abscond. In this case, the Court ruled that the objective criteria to define a ‘risk of absconding’ had to be established in a binding provision of general application. In the absence of that, Article 28(2) is inapplicable and detention on this ground must be declared unlawful. The Court affirmed the primacy of human rights law in EU asylum law implementation.

This chapter tries to analyze the Migrant and Refugees issues taking into account a Social Work’s multidimensional approach that allows to focus the different processes of migrants’ inclusion while keeping a broader perspective. Working with migrant people, refugees and asylum seekers, it is necessary to achieve and develop a cultural sensibility by understanding the different cultures. At the same time it is important to build a transversal wider social work conceptual framework based on citizenship and rights to challenge the issues concerning the minimum level of social interventions. To achieve this aim it could be relevant to involve formal and informal social networks in Refugees hosting into the Local Community. The aim of this chapter is to show that the Human Rights approach could be the lowest transversal level to the different social intervention and not only a specific approach. From this perspective the multidimensional community work could be the way to implement the Human Right approach.