EU religious engagement in the Southern Mediterranean: Much ado about nothing?

Abstract

Since the Arab uprisings, religious engagement is central to EU relations with the Southern Mediterranean. Given that the EU is a liberal-secular power, this article investigates why and how the EU is practising religious engagement and whether it is a rupture with past EU modalities of engagement in the region. The main finding is that EU religious engagement constitutes both a physical and ontological security-seeking practice. This is illustrated in three steps. First, EU's physical security is ensured by the promotion of state-sponsored forms of religion in Morocco and Jordan that aim at moderating Islam. Second, the framing of religion as an expertise issue in the EEAS and European diplomacies reinforces EU's self-identity narrative as a secular power. This self-identity is, however, subject to politicization and framing contestation through the case of Freedom of Religion or Belief and the protection of Christian minorities in the Arab world. Overall, this article finds that EU religious engagement is conducive to selective engagement with some religious actors, which could potentially lead to more insecurities and polarization in the region.

Security and stability reframed, selective engagement maintained? The EU in the Mediterranean after the Arab uprisings

“…At the same time, both these developments are constrained and shaped by the persistence of a material understanding of security revolving around the stability of Southern Mediterranean regimes. In the case of religious engagement, instead, Wolff (2017) suggests that in the wake of the Arab uprisings the EU approach has been shaped by a twin concern with both ontological and traditional security. Interestingly, the scope of the former has been broadened, leading the EU to focus more on training its diplomatic staff on how to develop a greater sensitivity to religious issues.…”

The European Union in the Eastern Mediterranean in 2020: Whither Strategic Autonomy

“…Ever since the early post‐Cold War era, the launching of the Barcelona Process has signalled a strong EU interest in supporting political and economic reform in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the EU scorecard was rather poor (Youngs, 2004). While in the context of the Arab Spring in 2011, the outbreak of democracy‐driven uprisings in the region was hailed by the European Union with high hopes for liberal democratic transition in the world's least free and democratic region, reality crashed expectations: the Eastern Mediterranean eventually turned into one of the world's most unstable regions, while the security–stability nexus remained key (Bicchi, 2014; Dandashly, 2018; Roccu and Voltolini, 2018; Wolff, 2018). This was not only due to the civil wars that have ravaged Libya and Syria since 2011, but also because of the sharp deterioration of relations between key regional players and the escalation of latent conflicts.…”