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Political and Security Cooperation in Europe's four sea basins |
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International Seminar
Rome, 3-4 April 2009
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The International seminar on Political and Security cooperation in Europe’s four Sea Basins, organized by the Istituto Affari Internazionali took place in Rome on April 3rd and 4th. The seminar aimed to assess the role and impact in the political and security fields of sub-regional actors and organizations in the four sea basins. |
 eu4seas_rome_programme 136.95 Kb
Amr Hamzawy: "In the Mediterranean, there's a gap between public rhetoric and behind-closed-doors diplomacy |
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Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt (2011)
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Rome, 5 April 2009
The seminar evaluated whether the EU, as well
as NATO and other international organizations reinforce security
cooperation at the sub-regional level. In fact, while the EU has
always been keen on promoting regional and sub-regional multilateralism,
proposing itself as a sort of model of such kind of cooperation, its
strategies and policies have not always been consistent with that aim.
Amr Hamzawy, researcher at Carnegie office in Beirut,
understimated the external temptation to promote democracy in
the region as the two Western approaches have not materialized:
American democracy promotion did not create greater political
freedom or a more shared distribution of lower in the Middle
East. He stressed that the EU’s Barcelona Process and its gradualism and
cooperation did not lead to democratisation either. In his opinion, the
reasons for this are:
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| (1) the lack of consistency towards all
Arab countries; (2) the gap between public rhetoric and
behind-closed-doors diplomacy; (3) the European and American
dependence (for different reasons) on local rulers; authoritarian
regimes are natural partners for European and Americans, and they do not
push for democracy; there are only cynical attempts to point out some
reformist groups as natural allies in the region (4) finally
the ruling establishments are not committed to democratisation. |
| The seminar brought together international experts, officials
and practitioners (see programme below) and provided
debates/discussions about defining security agendas in the four
sea basins: (Mediterranean, Baltic, Black and Caspian
Seas), cooperation between the sub-regional organizations on
conflict resolution issues. |
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