If anything can define the Middle East in 2014, it is its character as a region that is messy and in rapid flux. In this part of the world, as in others, insecurity leads to power struggles.
Since the energy resources are concentrated in the South while the greatest consumption is in the North, export flows move in a South to North direction, which requires heavy infrastructure.
Hostility towards the Muslim presence in Europe is a growing concern, not only for populations professing Islam but also for numerous actors – both public and private – concerned about respect for human rights.
European-Maghrebi binationals are destined to become major actors in economic and cultural cooperation between the North and South shores of the Mediterranean, a cooperation that constitutes a veritable link between Europe and Northern Africa.
The GCC states do not follow a coherent strategy and nor do they have a unified foreign policy, but rather different sets of conflicting foreign policies, which has often led to misunderstandings and disagreements within the group.
The 2011 uprisings in the Arab world have triggered a wave of constitution-making, although not necessarily of democratisation. Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt have adopted new constitutions – with Egypt actually enacting one full-fledged constitution.
Energy subsidies have traditionally played an important role in Middle Eastern and North African economies. Subsidies still represent a major component of social protection in the majority of Southern Mediterranean countries.
The revolutions, popular uprisings and protests that have taken place in the vast majority of Arab countries since December 2010 have triggered a fifth wave of political change in the region of North Africa and the Middle East.
What started as a local revolt against corruption and brutality has increasingly become a theatre for regional and international power struggles, especially a rivalry that has been described as a ‘cold war’ between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The political management of Jordan’s Arab Spring was marked, on the internal level, by the triggering of crisis “fuses” consisting of six changes of government in three years.
The EU set a deadline of 2012 to establish the second phase of the Common European Asylum System, and established the twin objectives of raising the level of protection and reducing the large divergences between Member States’ recognition rates .
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