Regional Dynamics in the Mediterranean and Prospects for Transatlantic Cooperation

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Two major trends can be identified that characterize the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries in the wake of the Arab uprisings. The first is their increased fragmentation and the appearance of seemingly centrifugal trajectories across the region with countries at different stages of the transition process. The second hallmark of the region today has to do with the pivotal position occupied by new political actors, namely the various Islamist parties that have emerged by and large as the most victorious political forces in the region after the first free and fair elections ever to be held in many countries in the region.

This report attempts to illustrate and study the new regional dynamics in the Mediterranean through four papers written by European and Southern Mediterranean experts. They tackle regional dynamics in the Mediterranean in the areas of trade and investment patterns; movement of people; energy cooperation; and civil society, culture, and means of communications. The goal of the report is to go beyond describing the current trends that underscore the existence of regional dynamics to assess the impact of domestic, regional, and global changes on them and to put forward policy recommendations for the transatlantic partners.

To achieve this goal, each paper tackles the following questions in its relevant subject area:

What are the current dynamics in trade and investment/migration/energy cooperation/civil society, culture, and communications in the Mediterranean region?;

How have they evolved in the past decade and in what way, if any, do they differ from the pre-Arab Spring context?;

What are the most important country-specific, regional, and global events and processes that have shaped regional dynamics in these fields in the Mediterranean region?;

How does this relate to existing relations between the region, on one hand, and Europe and the United States, on the other?; and

How could the transatlantic partners contribute to increased cooperation in these fields in the Mediterranean region?