Eufor 371 0026

‘Lost in transition:' EU Foreign Policy and the European
Neighbourhood Policy Post-Arab Spring

Federica Bicchi
Dans L'Europe en Formation 2014/1 (n° 371), pages 26 à 40
Éditions Centre international de formation européenne
ISSN 0014-2808
ISBN 9782855051932
DOI 10.3917/eufor.371.0026
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‘Lost in transition:’ EU Foreign Policy and the
European Neighbourhood Policy Post-Arab
Spring
Federica Bicchi
Federica Bicchi is Associate Professor in International Relations of Europe in the Department

of International Relations, London School of Economics. Her research interests include EU
foreign policy towards its Southern neighbourhood, on which she has published inter alia
European Foreign Policy Making towards the Mediterranean (Palgrave, 2007), as well as the
role of information exchanges within the EU foreign policy system and within the European
External Action Service in particular.
Introduction
This article aims to assess the response of the European Union to the Arab up-
risings, by focusing on the Southern dimension of the European Neighbourhood
Policy (ENP). The Arab uprisings, or Arab Spring, have created a tremendous stir
in the Arab world and the potential for change remains, despite the number of
negative developments that have occurred since.1 What has been the response of
the European Union (EU)? How has the bloc composed of 27 (28 since the 2013
accession of Croatia) states addressed the tumultuous changes in its Southern
neighbours? As this article will show, the response has brought to the fore the
extent to which the EU vision for the Mediterranean has faded. Confronted with
the upheaval in its Southern neighbours’ domestic politics, the EU has behaved
as an irrelevant power2 and it has not been able to provide an independent input.
In fact, the EU has predominantly reacted to events due to its limited capacities
1. Hamid Dabashi, The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism, (London/New York: Palgrave/Zed Books 2012).
Katerina Dalacoura, “The 2011 uprisings in the Arab Middle East: political change and geopolitical implica-
tions.” International Affairs 88 (1), (2012): 63-79; Asef Bayat, “Revolution in Bad Times,” New Left Review (80),
(2013): 47-60; Fawaz A. Gerges, The New Middle East. Protest and Revolution in the Arab World, (New York:
Cambridge University Press 2014).
2. Federica Bicchi, Europe and the Arab Uprisings: The Irrelevant Power? The New Middle East. Protest and
Revolution in the Arab World. F. Gerges. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
L’Europe en formation nº 371 Printemps 2014 - Spring 2014
EEF 371.indb 26 09/09/2014 22:32

EU Foreign Policy and the European Neighbourhood Policy Post-Arab Spring 27
for engagement with its Southern neighbours. In political terms, the EU response
and its capacity to positively contribute to political change in the Arab world
have been ‘lost in transition,’ i.e. in the political transition that occurred in the
EU Southern neighbourhood.
This argument will be developed by focusing on the Southern dimension of
the ENP, which has been arguably the main vehicle of the EU response.3 Two as-
pects will be analysed. First, the article will look at the slow but relentless decline
of regionalism as an EU foreign policy goal. Already before the Arab Spring, the
EU had abandoned any attempt at region-building in the Mediterranean. As the
Euro-Mediterranean Partnership gave way to the ENP, the emphasis shifted from
regionalism to bilateralism. The increasing emphasis on the latter, however, has
severely constrained the political role the EU could play when faced with the
fragmentation created by the Arab uprisings. With the partial demise of the ‘Arab
Presidents for life,’4 Europe’s Southern neighbourhood came to include countries
barely touched by the uprisings as well as countries profoundly and dramatically
affected. Bilateralism became stretched beyond limit. Second, the article will ad-
dress EU foreign aid to Arab Mediterranean countries. The ENP is accompanied
by the ENP Instrument (ENPI), which is an EU budget line devoted to support
economic and political transitions in the neighbouring countries. The type of
transition envisaged centres on economic and (to a much more limited extent)
political liberalisation. However, an analysis of the financial flows from the EU
to the Arab Mediterranean countries reveals that while more has been promised,
less has been delivered, as the disbursement rate has significantly worsened since
2011. Both the decline of region-building and the worsening of financial engage-
ment in the Southern Mediterranean signal how the EU’s efforts have been ‘lost
in transition.’
The article will first focus on the decline of region-building, by addressing
how the rise of the ENP has had positive consequences for specific countries but
also entailed the loss of a strategic vision for the region. It will then examine how
the EU financial contributions to Arab Mediterranean countries have changed in
response to the Arab uprisings, by providing aggregated data as well as data by
country.
3. Richard Gillespie, The European Neighbourhood Policy and the Challenge of the Mediterranean Southern
rim. The EU’s Foreign Policy: What Kind of Power and Diplomatic Action? M. Telò and F. Ponjaert, (Farnham,
Ashgate 2013).
4. Roger Owen, The rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life Cambridge (MA)/London, (Harvard University
Press 2012).
EEF 371.indb 27 09/09/2014 22:32

28 Federica Bicchi
The drift away from a European vision for the Mediterranean: the decline of
region-building
The rise of the ENP as the main instrument for EU foreign relations with its
Southern neighbours has entailed a shift of emphasis from region-building to bi-
lateralism. While some Mediterranean countries thrived outside the constrictions
of the regional framework, the shift left the Europeans without a clear vision for
the area. As a consequence, when the Arab spring brought an increased degree of
fragmentation to the Mediterranean, the EU could do little to counter the trend.
While the period 1995-2005 was marked by the centrality of the Euro-Med-
iterranean Partnership, which the EU launched to address its Southern partners,
in the following decade the emphasis turned slowly but relentlessly away from the
multilateral framework of the EMP and towards bilateral relations with Southern
neighbours as framed in the ENP. The change of language was thus revealing of
the shift in policy.
The region-building strategy of the EU has a long history.5 It started with the
Global Mediterranean Policy in 1972, when member states ‘invented’ the Medi-
terranean as a political area that was homogenous enough to justify addressing all
parts in the same way. The GMP consisted in nearly identical, parallel bilateral
channels, which however lacked a multilateral framework. One of the main nov-
elties of the EMP (if not the main one) was instead the degree of multilateralism
and regionalism embedded in the endeavour, as testified by the multilateral set-
ting it created. The EMP set out to ‘construct’ the Mediterranean, by establishing
a semi-permanent, multilateral dialogue on a very broad agenda, spelled out in
the three baskets of the Barcelona Declaration. Faced with a number of perceived
security issues, the EU addressed them by region-building, in the form of regional
dialogues, rather than by intensifying intra-European security cooperation.6 The
extent to which this was done with the final goal to create a common Euro-Med-
iterranean region, rather than a separate non-European Mediterranean region is a
matter of discussion.7 The nature of the relationship often corresponded “more to
a soft form of hegemony than to a partnership,”8 largely reflecting the imbalance in
5. Federica Bicchi, European Foreign Policy Making toward the Mediterranean, (New York/Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan 2007).
6. Emanuel Adler and Beverly Crawford Normative Power: The European Practice of Region Building and the
Case of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP). The Convergence of Civilizations. Constructing the Mediter-
ranean Region, Emanuel Adler, Federica Bicchi, Beverly Crawford and Raffaella Del Sarto. (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press 2006).
7. Michelle Pace, The Politics of Regional Identity: Meddling with the Mediterranean, (London and
New York: Routledge 2006.)
8.Eric Philippart, “The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership: a critical evaluation of an ambitious scheme,”
European Foreign Affairs Review, 8, (2003) pp. 201–220.
EEF 371.indb 28 09/09/2014 22:32

terms of economic and political power.9 Nevertheless, the institutionalization of

the EMP’s multilateral dimension was an undeniable achievement in comparison
with the previous 20+ years of Euro-Mediterranean relations. As it turned out,
it was a parenthesis in the long history of Euro-Mediterranean relations, during
which bilateral relations were subordinated to the regional agenda.
The ENP reversed this situation and brought bilateralism to the fore, allow-
ing countries with a potentially broader and richer agenda to develop it much
more easily. The ENP reintroduced a strong degree of bilateralism,10 which could
be seen in a number of ways: the ‘regatta approach,’ the granting of ‘advanced
status’ to selected partners and the negotiation of agreements in addition to the
EuroMed Association Agreements. All signalled that the relationship between the
multilateral dialogue among participants on both shores of the Mediterranean
and the agenda for bilateral relations was reversed. Rather than the multilateral
dialogue setting the themes to be then adopted and adapted in bilateral relations,
bilateral relations were to explore avenues that could not be addressed at the
multilateral level.11
This allowed willing countries to tremendously expand the agenda for their
cooperation with the EU, while others lagged behind. Morocco is a case in point,
and a similar case could be made for Israel. The differentiated approach of the
ENP is “precisely what Morocco has asked for”12 and it has led to an increase in
new areas of cooperation, such as aviation. The EU-Morocco aviation agreement,
signed in 2006, is a case in point. Not only it addressed a broad number of
regulatory issues, including flight safety and competition, but also and most im-
portantly it lifted capacity restrictions between the EU and Morocco. Traditional
and low cost airlines have been quick to benefit from the opportunity and as a
consequence, indicators of traffic with EU countries increased exponentially. The
number of flights tripled from ca. 200.000 in 2005 to nearly 600.000 by 2010,
whereas the number of international tourist arrivals doubled from 4.27 million
in 2000 to 9.34 million13 in 2011,14 thus contributing to Morocco’s official objec-
tive of 10 million tourists by 2010 and 20 million tourists by 2020. This has had
9. cf. Patrick Holden, In Search of Structural Power: EU aid policy as a global political instrument, (Ashgate Pub-
lishing, Ltd 2009).
10. Raffaella Del Sarto & Tobias Schumacher, “From the EMP to ENP: what’s at stake with the European
Neighbourhood Policy towards the southern Mediterranean?” European Foreign Affairs Review, 10 (1), (2005)
pp. 17–38.
11. Only one indication remained of the ambitious plan for a Euro-Mediterranean free trade area, namely the
pan-Euro-Mediterranean protocol on rules of origins, which does contribute to the original goal, but in a much
less demanding way.
12. Country Report Morocco 2004, p. 5.
13. This includes also Moroccans resident abroad, though.
14. Frédéric Dobruszkes and Véronique Mondou “Aviation liberalization as a means to promote international
tourism: The EU-Morocco case,” Journal of Air Transport Management 29 (2013): 23-34.
EEF 371.indb 29 09/09/2014 22:32

30 Federica Bicchi
a tremendous impact on the cities such as Marrakesh15 and more generally on the
tourist economy. The hotel industry in Morocco has grown on average over the
period 2001-2011 by 14%,16 while the overall contribution to Moroccan GDP is
a solid 9%, despite the 2008 crisis taking a small toll.17 As Morocco still employs
nearly 40% of its workforce in agriculture, which however represents only 15%
of the total value added of the economy,18 a path to diversification is seen as a
path to modernization, despite the related social tensions.
The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) represented a further step away from
regionalism.19 A key aim of UfM has been to promote projects among groups
of willing countries, and sub-regionalism in particular. While possibly a sign of
pragmatism, the importance assigned to the sub-regional level implicitly recog-
nized that the regional level could not deliver. Its institutionalization and the
emphasis on coalitions of the willing rely on functional complementarities or
overlapping visions more than it promotes ambitious plans to create common
political projects out of dissent. In short, it downsizes the political significance of
the EU foreign policy toward the area, although it also introduces a degree of real-
ism. The increase in the number of participants to 43 states further contributed
to the dilution of regionalism.
The UfM fell prey to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which came to dominate meet-
ings pre-Arab spring. 2010 was emblematic in this respect. Three ministerial
sectorial meetings (devoted to water, tourism and agriculture) were hampered
because of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Despite having reached a consensus on the
working programme, the ministerial meeting on water failed to issue a final dec-
laration because participants could not agree on how to refer to the ‘occupied
territories.’ Similarly, the difficulties in organizing a second summit of heads of
state and governments soon became overwhelming and Spain, which held the
European presidency in the second half of 2010, had to accept a postponement.
In the end, once the Arab uprisings started, both plans for the ministerial foreign
affairs meeting and the summit were shelved indefinitely.
The Arab spring further increased the differentiation among countries of the
Southern shore. The Arab world was partially redrawn and the range of varia-
tion increased. On the one end of the spectrum, Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and
15. Nicolai Scherle, Tourism, neoliberal policy and competitiveness in the developing world. The case of the Master
Plan of Marrakech. Political Economy of Tourism. A Critical Perspective. J. Mosedal. (Abingdon/New Your: Rout-
ledge 2011). pp. 217–24.
16. Eurostat European Commission, Pocketbook on Euro-Mediterranean statistic, (Luxembourg, Publications
Office of the European Union 2013).
17. World Travel & Tourism Council, Travel & Tourism Economic Impact 2012. Morocco. (London, 2012)., p. 3
18. Eurostat European Commission Pocketbook on Euro-Mediterranean statistics, (Luxembourg, Publications
Office of the European Union 2013).
19. Federica Bicchi “The Union for the Mediterranean, or the Changing Context of Euro-Mediterranean Rela-
tions,” Mediterranean Politics, 16 (1) (2011): 3-19.
EEF 371.indb 30 09/09/2014 22:32

Palestine underwent changes, none of which however really upset the nature of
the regime in place.20 At the other end of the spectrum, Libya and Syria not only
witnessed deep civil wars (and in the case of Libya an intervention from Western
countries to topple the regime), but also in their aftermaths came to include areas
of limited statehood, as the authoritarian grasp of Gaddafi and Assad relented
and other more local and less organised forms of authority filled the gap.21 Tunisia
and Egypt instead underwent a political transition, which in the case of Tunisia
is more solidly footed in the direction of democracy than in the case of Egypt.22
Lebanon, for its part, has been struggling to keep its domestic balance given the
impact of the civil war in Syria over its own population.
The European response to the Arab spring remained anchored in the ENP,
even though in a ‘revised’ format. Three communications sketched the EU re-
sponse to the crisis. In the first one, A Partnership for Democracy and Shared Pros-
perity with the Southern Mediterranean,23 published in March 2011, the EEAS
and the European Commission presented an ‘incentive-based approach.’ It was
summarised in the motto ‘more for more,’ indicating that more reforms would
be repaid with more cooperation and greater support from the EU. Ashton sum-
marised the issues at stake in the communication as the ‘3-Ms’: money, mobility,
and market access. This approach, heralded as a ‘fundamental step change in
the EU’s relationship’ with those partners that commit themselves to reforms,24
offered ‘mobility partnership’ to ease legal migration, an increase in funds, and
more market access through the negotiation of “Deep and Comprehensive Free
Trade Areas,” including, for instance, ‘regulatory convergence.25 The document
was followed by another communication, A New Response to a Changing Neigh-
bourhood, issued in May 2011.26 It elaborated further on the previous one and it
stressed again conditionality as a cornerstone of EU foreign policy: “Increased EU
20. Michael Willis, Politics and power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from independence to the Arab
Spring, (London: Hurst 2012); Michelle Pace, “An Arab ‘Spring’ of a Different Kind? Resilience and Freedom
in the Case of an Occupied Nation.” Mediterranean Politics 18 (1) (2013): 42-59; Frédéric Volpi, “Algeria versus
the Arab Spring,” Journal of Democracy 24 (3) (2013): 104-115.
21. Mattia Toaldo, “A European agenda to support Libya’s transition,” The European Council on Foreign Re-
lations, 19 May 2014, available at: http://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/a_european_agenda_to_sup-
port_libyas_transition308.
22. Laura Guazzone, “Ennahda Islamists and the Test of Government in Tunisia,” The International Spectator 48
(4) (2013): 30-50; Daniela Pioppi, “Playing with Fire. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Leviathan.”
The International Spectator 48 (4) (2013): 51-68.
23. Joint Communication to the European Council, the European Parliament, the Council, the European Eco-
nomic and Social Committee, and the Committee of the Regions, Brussels, 8 March 2011, COM (2011)200
final.
24. Idem, p. 5.
25. Idem, p. 9.
26. Joint Communication to the European Council, the European Parliament, the Council, the European
Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, Brussels, 25 May 2011, COM (2011)
303 final.
EEF 371.indb 31 09/09/2014 22:32

32 Federica Bicchi
support to its neighbours is conditional.”27 The third one launched a programme

entitled SPRING (Support for Partnership, Reforms and Inclusive Growth) in
September 2011, aimed at supporting democratic transitions, economic growth,
and institution building.
There was nothing really new in these communications, and especially in the
principles they embodied. While additional funds are important (but, as we are
going to see in the next section, hard to come by), the discussion on mobility did
not deliver any significant results and the main tools of the EU have remained
trade and limited aid, coupled with conditionality. The latter, a key EU instru-
ment for linking trade and aid to political developments, saw its role reconfirmed
in the post-Arab Spring context.28
Therefore, with an increased fragmentation on the ground and little attempt
to revive a European vision for the Mediterranean, the initiative has been outside
Europe. The trend towards fragmentation and diversification has further weak-
ened the already feeble attempts of the EU to draw local actors together in some
forms of regional or sub-regional dialogues. The Europeans thus struggled to in-
volve Southern neighbours in the management of complex issues, such as Libya,
Syria or Palestine. The UfM has not been able to deliver multilateral meetings
beyond the sectorial level, nor any sub-regional project of political significance.
The bilateral dialogues within the ENP continue, but it is up to the Southern
neighbours to impress the necessary momentum. As EU actors recently acknowl-
edged, “the success of the policy is directly dependent on the ability and commitment
of [Southern] governments to reform and deepen relations with the EU, as well as
on the capacity to explain and gain popular support and adherence to this agenda.”29
The EU has seemingly lost the ability to provide an independent input. It is in
this context that discussions about a possible reform of the ENP have begun to
take place, in order to understand what direction the EU could impress to Euro-
Mediterranean relations.
27. Idem, p. 3.
28. See, e.g., Rosa Balfour, “Changes and Continuities in EU-Mediterranean Relations after the Arab Spring,”
in S. Biscop, R. Balfour and M. Emerson (eds.), Arab Springboard for EU Foreign Policy, Egmont Paper 54,
(2012) pp. 27–35. and Smith, Karen E. (1998), ‘The Use of Political Conditionality in the EU’s Relations with
Third countries: How Effective?’, European Foreign Affairs Review, 3 (2), 253-74.
29. European Commission and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security
Policy, “Neighbourhood at the Crossroads: Implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy in 2013”,
Joint Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the
Committee of the Regions, Brussels, 27 March 2014, JOIN (2014) 12 final, p. 2.
EEF 371.indb 32 09/09/2014 22:32

The drift away from engagement on the ground: the financial practice of the
ENP
Given the context highlighted in the previous section, it comes as no surprise

that the EU has allegedly committed more funds to neighbouring Arab countries,
but has in fact spent less than before. The gap between rhetoric and practice
is well captured by the analysis of the financial instrument related to the ENP,
namely the European Neighbourhood Policy Instrument (ENPI), and how it has
been less able than before to engage with Arab countries in the post-Arab spring
context. While aid is always politically motivated,30 it cannot be a substitute for
politics. As this section will show, the EU has increased funds committed to Arab
countries. However, the change is not as substantial as it is often assumed and
certainly not to be taken for granted as often suggested. As EU budget commit-
ments for 2012 and 2013 have increased sharply, disbursements on the contrary
have declined. At a country level, commitments too have not increased uniformly
across the board, with several countries experiencing a less linear development.
Finally, the EU also created a number of new programmes, such as SPRING
(Support for partnership, reforms and inclusive growth), on the ENPI budget
line, but it will take time to understand whether they can be actually implement-
ed beyond the commitment stage. The most immediate change in EU funding
practices, therefore, was in the nominal amount of funds available, rather than in
funds effectively spent.
A preliminary proviso is worth noticing here. All budgets of public authori-
ties are generally composed of three sets of figures, covering the same budget en-
tries: 1) a programmed budget, which identifies planned spending; 2) the budget
committed to specific priorities within the programmed budget; 3) the actual
amount disbursed to fund those actions, generally referred to as the outrun. This
is also valid for the EU budget for external relations, which is divided in 1) a pro-
grammed budget, i.e. a general indication of how much the EU will spend, 2) the
budget committed, as expressed in planning documents (such as Annual Action
Programmes, etc.), 3) the actual amount disbursed, i.e. a number of contracts
that lead to the transfer of funds from the EU to the contracted agents. While
1) and 2) are generally referred to in Euro-speak as ‘commitments,’ 3) is instead
indicated as ‘disbursements’ or ‘payments.’
Typically, the three sets of figures never correspond, in the EU budget as else-
where. However, the EU displays a number of EU-specific issues. First, there
can be a considerable time lag between the programming of funds, their com-
mitment and their actual disbursement. The lag can be substantial, as in the case
30. Patrick Holden, In Search of Structural Power: EU aid policy as a global political instrument, (Ashgate Publish-
ing, Ltd 2009).
EEF 371.indb 33 09/09/2014 22:32

34 Federica Bicchi
of Financial Protocols signed with Mediterranean countries in the early 1990s,

in pre-Barcelona times, the payments for which were completed only in 2010.31
Moreover, despite a widespread belief to the contrary, the more difficult the task,
the more likely the EU is to under-spend. In the case of the European Initiative /
Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) in the Mediterranean
countries, the early years of the programme (2001-2005) show an underspending
of 25% of the overall set of commitments, corresponding to over € 3.7 million
earmarked for the promotion of democracy and human rights in the Mediter-
ranean that never reached the ground.32
These considerations are relevant for the case of the ENPI-South, which in-
cludes bilateral, regional and cross-border (sub-regional) co-operation with the
Mediterranean countries. As fig. 1 shows, the Arab uprisings led to an increase
in commitments. Funds committed, which had been increasing at the margins
in previous years, jumped by nearly 50% from 2011 to 2012, a change basically
reconfirmed in 2013. Despite the pressures to reduce the 2014-2020 budget, the
ENP South remained at a relatively high level until 2015, before declining to
absorb the budget cuts. This was a victory of the position advocated by the EEAS.
Figure 1: EU budget line 19 08 01 01 (budget 2007-2013, European Neighbourhood

and Partnership financial cooperation with Mediterranean countries) and budget line
21 03 01 (budget 2014-2020, European Neighbourhood Instrument – Supporting co-
operation with Mediterranean countries), (million €). These budget lines do not include
expenditures on administrative management.
Source: EU budget, various years, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/budget/www/index-en.htm. For 2011-

2012, figures show the actual outrun, whether 2013-2014 are a forecast.
31. Source: EU Budget 2012, part II, p. 822.

32. Federica Bicchi, “Dilemmas of Implementation: EU Democracy Assistance in the Mediterranean.” Democ-
ratization 17 (5) (2010): p. 989.
EEF 371.indb 34 09/09/2014 22:32

At the same time, funds actually paid out to Mediterranean countries have
not followed the same trend. Disbursements decreased in the years following the
inception of the Arab Spring (for a variety of reasons which I will explore later
on). This created a substantial lag between commitments and disbursements,
with more than a € 1.3 billion committed but not spent over 2009-2013 for the
Mediterranean countries.
The unspent margin between commitments and payments is not lost. Rather,
it is spread over a number of years, as the programming authorities define, al-
locate and disburse the funds. The expectations about the period over which this
was going to happen and the ENPI fully brought to fruition have been relatively
loose, though. According to the General Introduction to the 2014 Draft Budget,
the expectation was that it would take ca. 4 years to clear the last ENPI payments
committed in 2013.
These funding practices continued in the following years. In the discussion
about the 2014-2020 budget, member states decided to cut spending for the first
time in EU history, although they did not do so for the Southern neighbourhood
for year 2014 (the cut will come into effect in 2015). In terms of spending, the
expectation was that, given the novelty of some of the procedures introduced,
2014 was going to be a particularly ‘low’ year for Mediterranean disbursements,
as new programmes and procedures had to be gradually rolled out.
How can we explain this gap between commitments and disbursements?
Three aspects are worth noting. Most importantly, the political unrest in post-
Arab Spring countries has led to uncertainty and a shrinking absorption capacity
for funds expected to work over a middle-to-long period, such as the ENPI. Sev-
eral factors enter into play here. At times of turmoil, political and administrative
actors are reluctant to undertake application processes unlikely to deliver in the
short term. Moreover, the rapid turnover of actors has left the EU with a limited
set of interlocutors, as political developments have occurred at a faster pace than
the EU aid policy can follow. The political turmoil includes also political priori-
ties, which can shift from one day to the other, thus making extremely difficult to
plan the type of activities the EU excels in.
Second, the increase in funds has been matched by an increase in condition-
ality, i.e. in the number and type of conditions attached to the disbursement of
those funds, often summarised with the motto ‘more for more’ (more reforms
will lead to more concessions). Conditionality entails a substantial element of
discretion, thus in theory hinting to a greater scope for donors—in this case, the
EU—to spend when and where appropriate. The flip side, however, has been that
conditions attached to funds, under the ENPI-South and likely to continue un-
der the ENI-South, have not been met on the ground, thus leaving the EU with
little option but not to spend. The increased conditionality has thus translated in
EEF 371.indb 35 09/09/2014 22:32

36 Federica Bicchi
less flexibility in the use of funds, and ultimately in less funds being spent. While
this should reassure the European taxpayer about how funds are (not) spent, it is a
matter for concern in terms of engagement on the ground. It has become difficult
to predict when and where conditions will eventually be met. More generally,
the type of swift reactions that volatile contexts require is not the game at which
the EU excels. The EU has an instrument devoted to stability, which can be used
more promptly. But the engagement enshrined in the ENPI is not suited to crisis
situations.
Finally, as acknowledged in the EU budget accompanying documents, the
programming cycle of the EU entails a time span measured in years for imple-
mentation. Funds earmarked for a specific country, thus appearing on a given
commitment year, can be discussed and tendered in the following year, and dis-
bursed in the year after that, once contracts are finalized. If outsourcing is in-
volved, this might entail a further year. As December tends to be the European
Commission’s preferred month for committing funds (in order not to miss on the
yearly deadline), this can easily stretch the whole process over 3-4 years.33
Although this last factor is relevant, the previous two provide the essence of
the explanation for the lag between commitments and disbursements. The down-
wards trend in disbursements is expected to span across more than 3-4 years,
before eventually picking up, whereas the difficulties in matching funds with
activities and conditions are clearly evident across time and countries, despite
contingent and local variation.
While disbursements have been a particularly sore point in the EU policy
towards its Southern neighbours, commitments have not been without prob-
lems either. It is worth exploring how precisely the increase in commitments was
structured for the period 2007-2013. The focus will be on committed bilateral
funds, i.e. funds the EU aims to disburse to single Mediterranean countries in
support of the Association Agreements and related Action Plans. These increased
under the ENPI as a consequence of the Arab Spring, as shown graphically in
Figure 2 and numerically in Table 1, beginning from 2012. The increase at a time
of economic crisis has been generous but, as we are going to see, unevenly spread
across the board.
Commitments were unevenly spread across Arab countries. Egypt and Leba-
non experienced the same ‘slump cum eventual increase’ trend. Funds to Egypt
slumped to € 92 million in 2011 from € 192 million in 2010, before bouncing
to € 250 million in 2012, while Lebanon reached € 33 million in 2011, down
from € 44 million, before climbing to € 92 million. Jordan and Tunisia were
instead the early risers. Both experienced already in 2011 an increase in funding
33. cf. Federica Bicchi, “Dilemmas of Implementation: EU Democracy Assistance in the Mediterranean.” De-
mocratization 17 (5) (2010).: 976-996.
EEF 371.indb 36 09/09/2014 22:32

Figure 2: Bilateral commitments under ENPI (million €)

Source: Implementation of the ENP in 2012, Statistical Annex, SWD (2013) 87 final, Brussels 20.3.2013;
Implementation of the ENP in 2013, Statistical Annex, SWD (2014) 98 final, Brussels 27.3.2014. 2F
Table 1: Bilateral commitments under ENPI (million €)

ENPI
Algeria Egypt Israel Jordan Lebanon Libya Morocco Syria Tunisia South
Bilateral
2007 57 137 2 62 50 2 190 20 103 623
2008 32.5 149 2 65 50 4 228.7 20 73 624.2
2009 35.6 140 1.5 68 43 0 145 40 77 550.1
2010 59 192 2 70 44 12 158.9 50 77 664.9
2011 58 92 2 111 33 10 156.6 10 130 602.6
2012 84 250 2 110 92 25 207 48.4 130 948.4
Total
2007- 326.1 960 11.5 486 312 53 1086.2 188.4 590 4013,2
2012
Source: Implementation of the ENP in 2012, Statistical Annex, SWD (2013) 87 final, Brussels 20.3.2013;
Implementation of the ENP in 2013, Statistical Annex, SWD (2014) 98 final, Brussels 27.3.2014.
EEF 371.indb 37 09/09/2014 22:32

38 Federica Bicchi
over 2010, which represented nearly 60% of increase in the case of Jordan and
nearly 70% of increase in the case of Tunisia. Only Tunisia continued to grow,
however, whereas Jordan saw programmed funds shrink. While Libya and Syria
were the new comers (and funds for Syria in 2013 considerably swelled to care
for Syrian refugees), Morocco was the apparent loser of the game, until a big pot
of money was expected to be allocated at the end of 2013. In fact, the overall
amount of funds Morocco has received under the ENPI is unparalleled once put
in the context of its population. Despite having a population that is less than half
that of Egypt (ca. 32 million in Morocco, nearly € 80 million in Egypt in 2011)
Morocco has received more funds than Egypt over the period 2007-2012.
Moreover, in response to the Arab uprisings, the EU launched a number of
new programmes, drawing on an expanded ENPI budget line.34 For instance,
the EU created in September 2011 the SPRING programme. The programme
received in 2011 € 65 million, earmarked for Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tuni-
sia. It is from this programme that € 20 million were swiftly allocated (commit-
ted) to Tunisia in the autumn 2011, followed by another € 80 million in 2012.
For 2012, the programme was funded with € 350 million, then increased to €
390 million to include also Algeria and Lebanon. SPRING was allocated to the
Arab countries having more directly experienced the uprisings and in need of eco-
nomic development. Israel, Libya, Palestine and Syria were not allocated funds
under this programme. SPRING has aimed to support “democratic transformation
and institution-building” as well as “sustainable and inclusive growth and economic
development.”35 It is meant to provide the EU with a more flexible instrument
than the ENPI funds, which are tied to the Action Plans adopted in the frame-
work of the ENP. Therefore, it constitutes an ‘umbrella’ programme with loose
priorities and loose implementation rules. It is also the main vehicle for the ‘more
for more’ approach enshrined in the EU response to the Arab spring.
Two points stand out here. First, as all financial increases in funds potentially
available in the wake of the Arab spring, SPRING has encountered limitations in
absorption capacity on top of EU reluctance to disburse funds. As a consequence,
the commitments for 2013 have been more restrictive. Second, data available in
relation to SPRING disbursements is very scarce. While it is clear how the funds
should be spent, it is very difficult to retrieve information on whether they have
actually been spent, and on what.
The picture provided by the analysis of the funds on the ENPI for Arab South-
ern neighbours therefore shows that there was a change in the EU discourse on
34. For an overview, see Richard Gillespie, The European Neighbourhood Policy and the Challenge of the
Mediterranean Southern rim. The EU’s Foreign Policy: What Kind of Power and Diplomatic Action? M. Telò and
F. Ponjaert, (Farnham, Ashgate 2013).
35. Commission Implementing Decision, C (2011)6828, Brussels 29/9/2011, p. 1.
EEF 371.indb 38 09/09/2014 22:32

foreign aid towards post Arab spring countries, while a broadened discretionary
power was also embedded in the EU funding post-Arab Spring. Pledges and com-
mitments have abounded, but the disconnect between the premises on which
funds can be disbursed and developments on the ground have made it very dif-
ficult to engage financially in the short term. At the same time, it remains to be
seen whether results in the medium-long term will be any different.
Conclusions
By focusing on the Southern dimension of the ENP, this article has shown two
of the main features in the EU response to the Arab spring. First, the EU has been
hampered in its response by the emphasis the increasing prominence of the ENP
has started to put on bilateralism. As the Arab uprisings led to further political
fragmentation in the area, the EU was not able to use a regional framework to
leverage cooperation in the area and to jointly address challenges in the post-
Arab spring context. Second, the financial instrument of the ENP has not been
able in the short term to substitute for politics. While commitments increased,
disbursements decreased in a context in which the priorities set by the EU have
been difficult to achieve given the high social, political and economic volatility.
The long and complex implementation process of EU funds has been ill-suited
in the transition period currently characterising the Arab world. The EU political
input has thus been ‘lost in transition.’
This lack of EU political initiative challenges not only policy makers, but also
the academic scholarship on Euro-Mediterranean relations. As argued by Cava-
torta and Rivetti,36 there is the need to take stock of the literature. In the post-
Arab spring context, it has become crucial not just to show the gap between what
the EU says it does and what it actually does, but also to identify the mechanisms
through which this happens, so as to better understand how to redress the imbal-
ance in political initiative.
Abstract
The article assesses the response of the European Union to the Arab uprisings, by focusing on the South-
ern dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). It shows that the EU vision for the Mediter-
ranean has faded and it has been lost in the transition that Arab countries have been experiencing. Two
aspects are analysed. First, the article shows the slow but relentless decline of regionalism as an EU foreign
policy goal. The trend started prior to the Arab uprisings and in fact with the launch of the ENP, but the
reliance on bilateralism ended up curtailing the European role as the Arab spring led to more fragmenta-
tion in the area. Second, the article addresses EU foreign aid to Arab Mediterranean countries and shows
that since the inception of the Arab spring the EU has been nominally committing more funds, but actually
disbursing less because of the opening gap between conditions for spending the funds and conditions on
the ground.
36. Francesco Cavatorta and Paola Rivetti “EU-MENA Relations from the Barcelona Process to the Arab Upris-
ings: A New Research Agenda,” Journal of European Integration 36 (6) (2014): 619-625.
EEF 371.indb 39 09/09/2014 22:32

40 Federica Bicchi
Résumé
L’article évalue la réponse de l’Union européenne aux soulèvements arabes, en mettant l’accent sur la
dimension méridionale de la Politique Européenne de Voisinage (PEV). Il montre que la vision de l’UE pour
la Méditerranée a décliné et qu’elle s’est perdue dans la transition que les pays arabes ont connue. Deux
aspects sont analysés. Tout d’abord, l’article montre le déclin lent mais continu du régionalisme comme
objectif de politique étrangère de l’UE. Cette tendance a commencé avant les soulèvements arabes et, en
fait, avec le lancement de la PEV, mais l’appui sur le bilatéralisme a fini par réduire le rôle de l’Europe en
même temps que le Printemps arabe menait à une plus grande fragmentation de la région. Deuxième-
ment, l’article aborde l’aide extérieure de l’UE aux pays arabes méditerranéens et montre que depuis le
début du Printemps arabe, même si l’UE a nominalement engagé plus de fonds, elle a en fait déboursé
moins en raison de la distance croissante entre les conditions pour les dépenses des fonds et les conditions
réelles d’application.
EEF 371.indb 40 09/09/2014 22:32

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Federica Bicchi is Associate Professor in International Relations of Europe in the Department

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terms of economic and political power.9 Nevertheless, the institutionalization of

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support to its neighbours is conditional.”27 The third one launched a programme

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Given the context highlighted in the previous section, it comes as no surprise

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of Financial Protocols signed with Mediterranean countries in the early 1990s,

Figure 1: EU budget line 19 08 01 01 (budget 2007-2013, European Neighbourhood

Source: EU budget, various years, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/budget/www/index-en.htm. For 2011-

31. Source: EU Budget 2012, part II, p. 822.

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Figure 2: Bilateral commitments under ENPI (million €)

Table 1: Bilateral commitments under ENPI (million €)

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