The EU’s Geopolitical Crossroads in the Middle East

{
  "authors": [
    "Richard Youngs"
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  "centers": [
    "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
    "Carnegie Europe",
    "Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center"
  ],
  "collections": [
    "Europe’s Southern Neighborhood"
  ],
  "englishNewsletterAll": "ctw",
  "nonEnglishNewsletterAll": "",
  "primaryCenter": "Carnegie Europe",
  "programAffiliation": "EP",
  "programs": [
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  "regions": [
    "Middle East",
    "Europe",
    "Gulf",
    "Levant",
    "Western Europe",
    "Iran"
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  "topics": [
    "Foreign Policy",
    "Political Reform"
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Other

Carnegie Europe

The EU’s Geopolitical Crossroads in the Middle East

The EU should tailor its Middle East policies to European strategic interests, while avoiding an excessive focus on stability over reform.

By Richard Youngs

Published on Mar 12, 2015

Source: FRIDE

As violence and instability spreads across the Middle East and North Africa, the European Union recognises its failings in this region. The EU is currently reviewing its strategy towards its neighbours, and there are growing calls for the Union to develop a more geopolitical approach to protecting its strategic interests in the Middle East. A commitment to mould EU policies to the geopolitical complexities of the Middle East would be welcome – and indeed long overdue. But the challenge for European policymakers will be to give EU policies a more strategic edge without excessively focusing on stability over political reform.

Read the full text of this article at FRIDE.

About the Author

Richard Youngs

Senior Fellow, Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program

Richard Youngs is a senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, based at Carnegie Europe. He works on EU foreign policy and on issues of international democracy.

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Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

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