The Arab Spring and Europaralysis in the Levant and the Gulf

Europe has never had a comprehensive approach towards the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the Arab Awakening has not significantly altered the calculations behind the existing policy fragmentation. Despite framing political and economic relations with MENA through collective diplo- matic frameworks, either multilateral (such as the 1995 Barcelona process) or bilateral (as the European Neighbourhood Policy), the Union has never developed a fully-fledged strategy of engagement with the region, but it has fostered partially complementary and partially mutually exclusive policy goals (such as the simultaneous promotion of democracy and security).The lack of a comprehensive vision is a consequence of at least three factors: the persis- tence of political and economic post-colonial interests by many big European states, the weakness of the European External Actions Service, -still not fully operational and under- staffed- and the lack of leadership at the European level able to offer strategies if not grand visions of what Europe could and should become for its neighbourhood, and viceversa.