EU-Nachbarschaftspolitik - Nordafrika und Nahost

Article 8 of the Lisbon Treaty stipulates that the EU should develop ‘a special relationship with its neighbouring countries’, which also includes the politically, economically, socially and culturally fragmented regions on the southern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean that are fraught with tension. In the light of the aforementioned primary legislation, this anthology addresses the multifaceted question of whether or to what extent, based on the EU’s values, it would be in the EU’s interests to have a calming and stabilising effect on North Africa and the Middle East and how this could be achieved. In doing so, it analyses the upheaval in Arab states from a political and sociopolitical perspective, on the one hand, and discusses the EU’s effects, its potential to influence treaties, economies, politics and society, and the role of Turkey, on the other.