Middle East and North Africa

2011 was a tumultuous year in which the EU recovered from its surprise at the Arab Awakening, regrouped, and began revamping the ENP. 2012 should therefore have been the year in which the preparatory work was consolidated and Europe moved to a new, more political approach with the changed Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. But it didn’t quite turn out that way. Although the EU now has ENP action plans for Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Territories, and Tunisia, the onus remained on programmatic support for a broad aspiration to support democratic transitions. The EU failed to bring its significant influence to bear in other ways such as through political, diplomatic, and security engagement. [...]

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