Final Report Summary - EU-MED INSIGHTS (De-coding European Foreign Policy from the Outside. Views from the Maghreb Periphery)
1. Objectives
The objective of the EU-MED INSIGHTS project was to investigate the gap between the EU´s self-understanding and it self-presentation to the world on the one hand and how others in the EU’s Maghreb periphery perceive its international role. The research focused in particular on two particularly challenging fields of EU external policy, democracy promotion and socio-economic development. Due to the deterioration of the domestic political and security climate in Algeria, the field work was only conducted in Morocco (2013) and Tunisia (2014). The following two sections present a concise overview of the project results:
2. Scientific Findings
Drawing from post-colonial theory, the project has critically engaged with the key concepts of resistance, emancipation and transformation, which have been marginalised in previous studies on EU democracy promotion and development policy in European Studies or more broadly in International Relations. Nevertheless, the attempts to recover post-colonial agency has shown several methodological, conceptual and practical issues:
• Indigenous voices: the empirical research has highlighted the fragmentation and heterogeneity of local political and social voices, which inevitably runs the risk of leading to either simplification or under representation of local, particularly of Islamic paradigms of development. For instance, the empirical evidence suggests a large diversity of Islamic perspectives on what is acceptable (halal) and unacceptable (haram) in terms of financial transactions, profits or private property. For some, the zakat (religious tax from the capital) is obligatory for all Muslims, for others it is a voluntary contribution. For some, the collection of zakat should be centralised, for others it should be done on ad hoc basis.
• Silences: it has often been the case that the local remains silenced on different issues within the fields of democracy and development, which raises another question of how to encounter silent voices and who can speak on their behalf while reducing the risks of romanticisation of the Other. For instance, we should critically investigate why political Islam largely remains silent on economic governance whereas it is vocally pronounced on the issues of gender, family and other cultural specificities. The research has shown that the EU is complicit in creating such silences through its financial and programmatic documents, annual or progress reports or simply verbally during the task force meetings.
• Material resources: the research has also shown the limitations of material resources, such as time constrains, linguistic skills or financial means to conduct extensive field research which could help us to uncover the complexities surrounding the indigenous voices. For instance, without the knowledge of the Arabic language one risks to be limited to information provided by the French speaking elites in the Maghreb countries. The field work is also usually limited to short term visit which is not sufficient to gain an access to Islamic movements which are rarely exposed to the Western researchers.
• Inter-disciplinary angel: the Marie Curie project has tried to merge concepts from political economy, Islamic theology, IR and sociology. This inter-disciplinary endeavour has also encountered difficulties in transcending the inter-disciplinary boundaries from ontological as well as practical point of view.
Given the increasing importance of non-western world and resistance to the West, the scientific community should invest considerable material and intellectual efforts to further investigate the relevance of post-colonial theory which can undoubtedly open new spaces for discovery, dialogue and communication with otherwise unheard or often misunderstood subaltern voices
3. Policy relevance:
Due to the rise of ISIS, the recent outbreak of the refugee crisis and terrorist attacks, the Mediterranean region has undoubtedly re-gained its geo-political and geo-economic importance. As such the project has received great attention from policy-making circles in Brussels as well as European civil society who are often not sufficiently aware of the differentiated impact of their actions and inactions.
Adaptation and reflexivity: Overall, the research has shown the EU´s limited capacity to adapt to the local contexts despite the EU´s declarations of local partnerships. The Greek crisis and the rejections of the results of the Greek referendum have further reinforced this feeling among the Maghreb countries.
Financial assistance: The EU cannot and should not compete with other international actors in terms of the financial assistance. Instead, the EU should invest considerable efforts to enhance the absorption capacity of the Maghreb civil society as well as the public sector through trainings and simplifications of the rule and procedures. In this respect, the EU´s delegations have limited capacity themselves and should therefore be reinforced. The newly established European Endowment Fund is an example of moving towards simplification of rules.
Normative power Europe: The empirical scrutiny of the EU´s self-image of an attractive political community has shown its limits in several policy areas, notably the management of migration originating from the Muslim-Arab world, border security as well as European crisis. If the EU´s poles of attractiveness continue to shrink, the EU´s credibility as well as its capacity to negotiate international affairs will be seriously undermined.
Limits of secularism: Given the increasing importance of religion within Maghreb societies as well within the EU´s public spheres, the research has also confirmed the limitations of secularism. Instead of trying to eradicate Islam form the public sphere, the EU (and its member states) should investigate in what ways the Muslim community could be incorporated into the public sphere. For instance, the EU should explore possibilities of dialogue via its delegations in the Maghreb countries which in spite of the increasing importance of political Islam remain reluctant to engage with the religious actors including Islamic feminist movements, youth leaders or charities.
Furthermore, a better awareness of these impacts could aid policy-makers in developing a more diversified set of measures tailored to the specific contexts and to the diverse actors within the third party in the question, particularly the Arab world.