Previous studies on regional integration across the Mediterranean outlined a large potential to increase trade flows of goods and services, to be developed in order to contribute to the economic and social cohesion of the region. The thought was that countries could benefit from a large regional market while also promoting foreign direct investment and mobilizing people across both shores of the Mediterranean. 

Yet, the three interlinked dimensions of regional integration—foreign direct investment, trade of goods and services, and ultimately, mobility of peoples across the Med region—seem to have fallen short of  the ambitious objective embraced by the seminal Barcelona Declaration twenty-five years ago. The stated goal of the declaration was to turn “the Mediterranean basin into an area of dialogue, exchange and cooperation, guaranteeing peace, stability and prosperity”.

CMI’s Updated Integration Vision

While advocating the merits of such objectives, the Center for Mediterranean Integration (CMI) has recently attempted to provide an updated and enhanced vision for regional integration in today’s context. Based on recent analysis, the CMI’s three-prong approach recommends further eliminating tariffs and non-tariff barriers to the trade of goods and services, with a strong emphasis on the trade of services. This is due to the effect of services on productivity and job creation that can spill over to agriculture and industry, including the fields of information, telecommunications and technology (ICT).

The CMI’s approach also recommends increasing the mobility of workers and jobs within the Mediterranean region through proactive and regularized migration policies. Finally, the CMI suggests that further promoting investment and private sector businesses and partnerships between parties on both sides of the Mediterranean will be key to the socioeconomic transformation of the region.

Fundamental to the CMI’s vision is the belief that trade liberalization cannot be dissociated from sectoral reforms. As such, removing tariffs, alone, will not result in economic growth. As long as trade restrictions remain in critical areas such as transport, infrastructure, regulations, logistics, digitalization, and financial intermediation, no real economic and political progress will be made. Such restrictions not only increase trade costs, but also make diversification and upscaling more difficult, therefore delaying structural transformation which, in turn, decreases opportunities for trade exchanges.

In addition, trade liberalization should not be implemented alone, but rather in the context of a comprehensive policy package that aims to achieve social and distributive goals in addition to efficiency gains. First, the static efficiency gain generated by trade is expected to be accompanied by scale effects linked to the possibility of operating in a larger market, as well as positive externalities associated with technology transfers and better positioning of the region in global value chains. 

This process is exemplified by the possibility of adopting co-production approaches between European and Southern Mediterranean companies, allowing investors from more advanced countries to support local initiatives in the South by transferring know-how and technology, which permit the production of higher-value-added goods in the South. 

In the long run, regional integration should contribute to a gradual convergence of average salaries between countries, an essential element for social cohesion. Since it is anticipated that increased trade flows will cause income levels to rise in exporting sectors while income in the other sectors focused on local consumption may experience a decrease, other policies must be adopted to mitigate emerging income disparities. Policymakers must also acknowledge that not all territories within the region will be equally affected by the re-allocation of factors due to trade exchanges, given their different geographic locations and endowments such as land and human capital. Therefore, territorial cohesion policies targeting vulnerable areas should be designed as part of the policy package. 

Economic efficiency gains associated with trade reforms will also depend greatly on the mobility of people within the region. Such mobility is desirable to allow for the acquisition of the relevant knowledge, the exchange of ideas, the upgrading of skills, and the transfer of techniques and scientific discoveries. However, without migration policies aiming at managing legal migration flows, including circular migration, and better dialogue (bilateral and multilateral) among countries in the region, the potential of workers’ mobility, both as a growth determinant and as a social inclusion factor, will remain underexploited. 

With the aim of mobilizing additional investment in the region, greater support from international partners such as the European Union and international financial institutions like the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the World Bank, as well as neighboring states, will still be needed. Such support—if provided as part of a proactive, partnership-based, co-development approach—could serve as the catalytic factor needed to trigger the transformation of the region. It could materialize through projects of common interest, scaled-up to involve countries on all shores of the Mediterranean, East and West, North and South. 

This transformation will also require a coordinated approach to enhance the attractiveness of the region to private foreign investors, especially in countries where the public sector still occupies a large percentage of economic activities, crowding out the emergence of smaller private-owned businesses. Regulatory reforms as well as measures to improve the overall business environment and monetary and fiscal (non-tax) incentives, as opposed to arbitrary tax exemptions, should be envisaged. In this context, co-production schemes involving small and medium-size enterprises within the region will be essential for transferring technology and know-how, while also contributing to job creation. 

In sum, this overall approach points toward further promoting growth through comprehensive trade reforms, while also fostering the mobility of workers through regularized migration schemes. CMI wants to inspire policymakers to follow a path that will promote foreign direct investments and cross-country private-public partnerships. In parallel, the provision of regional public goods and more targeted initiatives aiming at protecting some vulnerable income groups and less-favored geographic locations will be necessary to reduce and prevent income disparities. 

Providing Regional Public Goods

Regarding the provision of regional public goods, two areas can be singled out as crucial for the consolidation of regional integration: human capital and the environment, particularly, building resilience to climate change. The provision of these two common goods cannot be addressed through a strictly competitive approach. Extensive collaboration between participating nations in these two strategic and symbolic areas could make an immense contribution to future growth paths of the region. 

Human capital is involved in knowledge production, namely research, the dissemination of ideas through education and employability gained with the acquisition of know-how, which is directly useful to companies for technical and professional training. Indeed, regional development of human capital will be one of the main factors determining the success of the integration process in the Mediterranean, as it will contribute to growth through the development of a knowledge economy and more innovation. The development of innovation will facilitate human mobility between countries and sectors and enable cultural interaction. 

In this vein, student mobility is absolutely necessary to underpin human capital formation. Following the example of Europe, which has created several successful cooperation schemes, programs involving students from all Mediterranean countries should be designed in order to facilitate knowledge sharing throughout the region. 

Closer involvement of large European training institutions in teaching students from Eastern and Southern countries could also provide European companies with a new incentive to invest heavily in those Mediterranean countries. These developments are essential to ensure progress on a third element, which is instilling a thirst for knowledge acquisition among young people in “the sectors of the future”, in addition to improving the quality of educational provision and responding to labor market demands, all of which are involved in the building of human capital. 

The second area of focus relates to another essential regional public good: the environment (referring to the quality of air, water, and land), particularly in response to acute climate change threats, which are of particular concern in the region. There are numerous natural comparative advantages to be harnessed in the region using abundant natural resources and renewable energies, which integrated environmental policies (across sectors) could facilitate. As highlighted by several pieces of research, issues related to water, energy, and food cannot be considered separately in the region because of the numerous interactions between the sectors. Together, they can be at the heart of solutions to future crises. Proactive environmental policies integrating these three sectors could offer significant economic and job creation opportunities in Mediterranean countries. 

The energy sector, a truly regional public good, offers the greatest potential. In addition to reducing the carbon footprint of Mediterranean countries, investing in renewable energies (solar, wind, etc.) can aid in the development of technological leadership in this sector, provide jobs, and secure access to an affordable source of low-carbon electricity for all Mediterranean countries, including those in the European Union. 

Euro–Mediterranean electricity market integration makes it possible to connect countries of the southern shore, which are rich in carbon-free energy resources, with countries of the northern shore, which have a strong appetite for carbon-free electricity—and are willing to pay for it. Connectivity is key to energy transition and requires availability and efficient use of inter-connectors. However, such inter-connectors are notoriously difficult to finance and implement. Regional market integration would expand throughout Europe access to low-carbon supply sources such as hydro reserves (as in Norway) and plentiful solar power in Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries. 

In order to successfully achieve regional energy market integration, policymakers, energy companies, and regulators from the North and South of the Mediterranean need to embrace the benefits of Euro–Mediterranean electricity market integration. Maintaining a network of experts, government representatives, and energy players from around the Mediterranean is essential to share best practices and influence policymaking. If Mediterranean countries were able to cooperate in this area, with support from the EU and perhaps other multilateral institutions, this would give rise to solidarity across the Med region, with the ultimate result being a powerful economic bloc. 

The Water-Energy-Food Nexus in Mediterranean Integration

Using a similar perspective, it is necessary to promote an integrated regional approach to manage water scarcity, which is severely aggravated in the Mediterranean—a region that is among the world’s most vulnerable to climate change. Water is, by definition, a global issue since watercourses connect countries and the factors contributing to its depletion, including climate change, affect the whole world. In the Mediterranean region, the main goal would be to tackle water management by focusing on strengthening collaboration and integration between the different basin countries. 

Water scarcity and related insecurity in the region have been drivers of forced migrations, instability, and conflict. These phenomena are expected to be aggravated in the future. Together with the increase of demography, the effects of climate change will have a tremendous impact on the water sector. Coming changes will include a decrease of water availability ranging from 2 percent to 15 percent in the case of a 2 degrees Celsius increase of temperature. Also, water scarce populations—i.e., people living with less than 1,000 m3 of water per year—are expected to rise over 250 million during the next twenty years. 

Mediterranean countries face similar water management challenges rooted in inefficient conventional water governance systems and obsolete management practices. In order to meet future regional water supply needs, it will be essential to adopt a resilient and integrated approach in the water sector while placing cooperation at the core of the process. A cooperative framework that creates an environment that enables all stakeholders to be heard and included is a prerequisite to ensuring efficient and effective management. Moreover, in the definition of smart solutions, emphasis should be placed on engaging vulnerable communities and often forgotten population groups such as women and youth. 

Regarding food production, the region offers huge trade potential because of geographical proximity. The Mediterreanean region is perfectly situated between Africa and Europe and has similar resources and common consumption patterns, which are especially important in food industries. Furthermore, agricultural production has clear positive spillover effects for water, health, and biodiversity and also revitalizes rural areas and offers income earning opportunities in remote locations, further contributing to territorial cohesion. One of the main advantages of trade liberalization in the region is the possibility of occupying a competitive position in the market for certain Mediterranean food products. This could allow producing countries to adopt higher quality standards and create brands, rather than just supplying intermediary products to European distributors to promote them under their own brands.

The impact of growing water scarcity on agriculture is, however, worrisome, as the sector is the main water consumer. Reducing the dependence and demands of the food and energy sectors on water should be the overarching objective of water-energy-food policies in a water-constrained region. Transitioning to renewable energy can contribute to both making water more available and reducing CO2 emissions. To reach this critical objective, multiple strategies can be developed and implemented to increase nonconventional water supply sources and transform energy systems toward low-carbon solutions. Increasing intersectoral collaboration will be key in addressing water-energy-food nexus challenges. Regional partnerships with national, regional, and global actors should foster development and trust across countries, leveraging resources and knowledge needed to develop innovative and inclusive solutions. 

By integrating these three sectors, the Mediterranean region could become a model for the world by promoting the use of renewable energies to find solutions to water scarcity as well as more efficient agriculture practices and production techniques. In turn, more equitable access to water could also contribute to food diversification and preserving the stability of rural ecosystems, which will be essential for territorial cohesion and climate change mitigation.  

Reflections in the Midst of the COVID-19 Crisis

While our analysis was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic shocked the world, our approach must internalize the effects of the coronavirus, particularly since the Mediterranean region has been hit hard. No country in the region has been spared from its tragic effects and economic spillovers, such as the negative price of oil for the first time in modern history. 

When trying to adopt measures to combat this unprecedented crisis, every country in the region initially faced what appears to be a trade-off between saving lives and saving livelihoods. The ongoing global recession is amplifying other adverse effects, all of which require adequate responses to facilitate recovery and stimulate the economy, of the health crisis on the region’s population. In particular, vulnerable population groups are in need of immediate support. Well-targeted measures must be implemented to mitigate losses in per capita income and living standards and, in some cases, to avoid a humanitarian crisis.

Facing this shock, the notions of collaboration and cooperation among countries appear more relevant than ever. First, the virus does not know boundaries. Second, no country should fall behind in finding remedies. While every country is facing its own effects, dialogue in search of regional and global solutions appears, once again, essential. 

We cannot forget that the links that unite Mediterranean countries should be at the heart of the response. In the medium term, the crisis may offer an opportunity to circumvent the lives-livelihoods trade-off by promoting economic activities that build on the human capital of the region (such as training and mobility of health workers) while also respecting the environment (reopening renewable energy activities for job creation). This is not the time to refocus on national issues without looking at the regional context. On the contrary, regional solutions to the post-COVID crisis should further contribute to the noble goal of Mediterranean integration.

Libya’s Fragmentation: Structure and Process in Violent Conflict. By Wolfram Lacher, I.B. Tauris, 2020

Wolfram Lacher’s book Libya’s Fragmentation advances a novel theoretical framework that emphasizes the centrality of the process of Libya’s unravelling. In doing so, Lacher makes a significant contribution to scholarship on contemporary events in Libya and to conflict studies more broadly.

Many discussions of Libyan politics today focus on identifying a route out of the country’s prolonged governance crisis. Broadly, there is consensus among Western powers that a political deal to agree upon a unified system of governance must be inclusive and that there is a need to reform the institutions that remain in the country. Yet, when it comes to determining who should be in the room to agree on such a deal—to decide on whom represents whom—agreement soon evaporates. Ahead of his planned national conference in April 2019, then-UN Special Representative Ghassan Salame said that he had more than a dozen categories of participants. Indeed, such is the extent of fragmentation within Libya today—to adequately represent the population, there would need to be six million participants, a number close to the country’s population.

There is no shortage of narratives to explain Libya’s predicament. For some, the ongoing conflict is between Islamists and non-Islamists; for others, it revolves around revolutionaries versus counter-revolutionaries, or democrats versus autocrats. Others define it as an inter-communal struggle. A close look at Libya’s development since 2011 reveals that all of these constituencies exist, yet none of them alone adequately explain the complex web of identities and influences that have impacted individual and collective decision-making.

Lacher uses his theoretical framework to escape the confines of these arguments by exploring intra- and inter-community dynamics at key junctures in geographic case studies—Misrata on the northwest coast, Zintan in the western mountains, Bani Walid in western/central Libya, and Tobruk on the Egyptian border, among others. Each of these locations had dramatically different experiences in the 2011 revolution and post-revolutionary period. Misrata and Zintan became revolutionary bulwarks and key shapers of the post-revolutionary order. Bani Walid experienced the revolution as a defeat, while in many ways the revolution appeared to pass Tobruk by.

The case studies in the book are empirically rich and illustrate many things, but one of their most helpful contributions is the way they are used to dissect assumptions made about community-level responses. Lacher argues that the positions of these communities in the 2011 conflict cannot be explained by a historic status of loyalism or opposition to the Gaddafi regime. All of these communities were wedded to the regime in one way or another, he argues.  This argument holds, although it may be salient to point out that the connections between the regime and its cronies should be distinguished from the relationship between the regime and the communities at large.

Here comes the focus on the process to explain: for Lacher, asking why the Libyan revolution erupted is synonymous with asking how the revolution unfolded. For example, he argues that Misratan unity was “forged through the conflict” with regime forces to defend their city, creating a new Misratan identity that brought together tight-knit networks of armed groups, families, and businessmen. The rebellion in Misrata erupted “not because of…political marginalisation, but in spite of the close ties between its business elite and the regime.” Critically, this eruption was provoked by a chain of events elsewhere.

Lacher is hostile toward exclusively rationalist interpretations of collective action, but does place significant emphasis on the factors of geography and collective fear as a basis for pragmatic decision-making. For example, the location of Zintan in the Nafusa mountain range provided a buffer of natural defences against potential regime incursions in 2011. In Misrata, businessmen had the financial resources and a port to obtain sufficient weaponry and supplies. On the other hand, Bani Walid had no such advantages, heightening fears of potential collective punishment for siding with the rebellion. Again, its eventual position as a center for counter-revolution was “determined by the outcome of processes driven by violence” and not predetermined, Lacher concludes.

As a result of their experiences in the revolution, Zintan and Misrata emerged as confident local military powers. However, the alliances that Zintan formed in the Nafusa mountains would disintegrate, and the new-found unity in Misrata would dissolve, as processes of fragmentation endured. The two power centers would come to blows for control of Tripoli in 2014 as the transitional process broke down.

Lacher’s blow-by-blow account of these developments in the national picture is precise. Bani Walid has remained in isolation, while Tobruk—which did not suffer from the 2011 conflict or the violence that beset other eastern cities in the years to follow—has retained its established political order.

The book masterfully retraces the breakdown of Libya’s transitional process, the outbreak of a second bout of civil war in 2014, and the current governance crisis. The author examines the key actors (networks of businessmen, armed groups, and politicians) that eventually sought to violently contest the political order, rather than resorting to descriptions of amorphous blocs. Lacher contends that too much emphasis has been placed upon organization-centric frameworks that focus on “armed groups” as the unit of analysis in conflict studies. He argues with justification that the reality in Libya is that these forces are often so socially embedded in the country that distinguishing them from the broader community as discrete actors is not a valid approach. Instead, a broader analysis of social transformation would be more instructive. This is the crux of Lacher’s thesis.

A seeming challenge to this approach comes in the form of Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces, who has consolidated power over eastern Libya since 2015 and initiated an ongoing third bout of civil war in April 2019. Lacher contends that Haftar was able to consolidate his power structure in the eastern Libyan borderlands due to a “lack of cohesive local and military forces” in the region.

The author argues that these conditions allowed Haftar’s forces to dis-embed from local social networks with the aid of foreign backing in a way that would not have been achievable in western Libya. However, while the characterization of Haftar as a warlord may be apt, Lacher does not consider the importance of the nationalist garb of his forces. Even though these forces are ultimately subject to the personalised rule of Haftar himself, the field marshal has spearheaded an avowedly national project that has distinguished him from his opponents. This has proved to be an important factor in Haftar’s expansion. Although the field marshal’s fortunes are now on the wane, Lacher offers Haftar’s rise as a sobering lesson that the processes of fragmentation underway today in Libya may lay the groundwork for consolidation tomorrow.

The canon of scholarly work on post-2011 Libya is growing but remains modest. This is particularly true of the post-2014 period. Lacher does much to fill this void. His contribution lies in two places: first, through a raft of empirical data collected through primary research with Libyan interlocutors; and second, and most valuably, through a theoretical framework that provides a means of conceptualizing and understanding Libya’s divisions. The narrative of the book is unerringly clear. The processes are highly complex and atomised, but that will come as no surprise to the scholar of Libyan politics, for whom this is simply a must-read.

Since the 2011 Arab uprisings, Russia’s geopolitical position in the Mediterranean region has undergone a sweeping transformation. At the start of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s third term as president, the short-term outlook for Russia’s influence in the Mediterranean region was bleak. Having designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, Russia’s ability to engage with Tunisia’s Ennahda government and Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi faced institutional obstacles. To make matters worse, Russia lost $4 billion in arms contracts with Libya when Muammar Gaddafi perished in October 2011, while Moscow’s sole regional ally, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, was struggling for survival. 

Yet, in the following eight-year timespan, from 2012–2020, the story of Russia’s influence on the eastern Mediterranean has been one of almost unbridled ascendancy. The Russian-led Astana and Sochi peace processes dominate negotiations on Syria’s political future; Russia has established robust partnerships with Israel, Egypt, Greece, and Turkey; and Moscow has featured prominently in negotiations on resolving Libya’s ongoing civil war. 

With Russia’s geopolitical standing in the Mediterranean arguably more pronounced than at any time since Egypt expelled its Soviet technical advisors in 1972, and more diplomatic partners in the region than the USSR could ever claim, the impact of Russia’s resurgence on the prosperity and stability of the Mediterranean region needs to be assessed. The paradox of Russia’s involvement in the Mediterranean region is that Moscow is genuinely interested in contributing to the stability of the Mediterranean, due to Soviet-inspired great power status ambitions and economic interests, but has often resorted to disruptive and destabilizing tactics to expand its regional influence. 

Russia’s dual role as a “disruptor” and a “stabilizer” shows the trajectory of Moscow’s economic, diplomatic, and security roles in the Mediterranean. The question then is whether Russia’s Mediterranean strategy has long-term sustainability in the face of assertions from other powers in the region. 

Russia’s Economic Interests
Although economic factors have often taken a backseat to Russia’s pursuit of diplomatic influence in the Middle East, Moscow’s power projection strategy in the Mediterranean has uncharacteristically large economic foundations. Turkey, for example, is Russia’s largest trading partner in the Middle East, with at least $25.2 billion in annual commercial transactions. But Russia also has $10 billion in annual trade with Egypt and $5 billion in annual trade with Israel, as well as considerable commercial relations with Greece that skirt around European Union (EU) sanctions. These commercial foundations are the natural succession of the Soviet Union’s prominent economic presence in the region during the Cold War. The Soviet presence revolved around economic development projects and grain exports, but Moscow has also gradually ensconced itself as a crucial supplier of the region’s energy needs. 

Since Russia began large-scale natural gas sales to Greece, it has become a major energy exporter to the Mediterranean region. Contracts in this sphere have proliferated in recent months, in spite of pricing uncertainties and the COVID-19 pandemic. On January 8, 2020, Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unveiled TurkStream, a natural gas pipeline running from Russia to Turkey that distributes supplies held by Russian natural gas company Gazprom. This gas pipeline will play a primary role in supplying the entirety of southeastern Europe, including North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Private Russian gas producers such as Novatek supply liquefied natural gas to the Turkish market, and this division of responsibilities has established Moscow’s role as a leading guarantor of Turkey’s energy security.

In North Africa, Russia has combined investments in major gas companies with the supply of nuclear energy. On May 4, 2020, Algeria’s natural gas company Sonatrach signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a possible partnership with Russian oil giant Lukoil, and this deal expanded on the existing MOU between Sonatrach and Gazprom, which was signed in 2006. On April 19, 2020, Russian nuclear energy giant Rosatom signed a ten-year contract with Egypt to supply parts. Russia has cautiously avoided binding commitments to controversial energy sector projects, such as Turkey’s offshore drilling off Cyprus’s coast and Israel’s offshore energy reserves, because it wishes to maintain favorable relations with Egypt, Turkey, Israel, and Iran. Russia’s cautious approach aligns closely with its broader balancing strategy as it regularly engages with the leaders of all four countries and is viewed by each country as a vital stakeholder in Syria and Libya. Notwithstanding its noncommittal approach to the region’s most controversial deals, Russia is an indispensable force in Mediterranean energy markets. 

Although Russia’s standing as an economic power in the Mediterranean is indisputable, its approach to obtaining commercial deals reveals both the disruptive and stabilizing elements of its regional policy. On the disruptive side is Moscow’s willingness to leverage its influence in regional conflict zones to its commercial advantage. Its post-2015 military intervention on behalf of the Assad regime in Syria has primed Russian companies for preferential deals in Syria’s energy, housing construction, and petrochemical sectors once the war finally draws to a close. Similarly, Russia’s simultaneous supply of banknotes to eastern Libya, which is dominated by Libyan National Army chief Khalifa Haftar, and Russian oil company Rosneft’s stake in the National Oil Corporation controlled by Libya’s United Nations (UN)-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), has effectively made it complicit in funding both parties of the war. 

Although Russia’s economic activities in the Mediterranean region arguably contribute more to protracted conflicts than those of any other external power, it also plays a critical role in shoring up the region’s economic security. This dimension of Russian economic policy is a natural succession from Soviet-era power projection, when the USSR supplied extensive financial aid to conciliatory non-aligned states, such as Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser, and bastions of Arab socialism, like Syria under Hafez Al-Assad and Algeria under Ahmed Ben Bella. 

As Russia lacks the ability to emulate the Soviet Union’s capital-intensive approach to economic engagement with the Mediterranean region, its contributions to regional economic security are based on exports of essential goods and investments in high-risk economic zones. Russia plays an understated role in maintaining food security in the Mediterranean region. Turkey and Egypt are the two largest purchasers of Russian wheat in the world and Russia’s supply of two hundred thousand tons of wheat to Syria in January 2019 prevented a humanitarian crisis triggered by a historically poor harvest. Meanwhile, Russia’s “suitcase trade”, which consists of its vendors reselling goods from Turkish bazaars, provides critical hard currency for Turkey’s informal economy, which helped ameliorate economic crises in Turkey throughout the 1990s. 

In addition to its transactional contributions to economic security in the Mediterranean, Russia has also taken major steps toward constructing a stable economic order in the region; it has supported the construction of free trade zones, which promote economic interdependence. In October 2019, Putin expressed support for a free trade zone between Egypt, Israel, and Russia, and believes that this zone will favorably contribute to peace in the Middle East. The Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union’s overtures to Israel, Syria, and Egypt could also help fuel interdependence in the future, even though at present its aspirations appear more expansive than its economic leverage. 

Moscow’s Evolving Diplomatic Role
Beyond its growing economic role, Russia’s prominent diplomatic presence in the Mediterranean is critical to its projection of great power status. Russia’s involvement in regional diplomacy has noteworthy parallels with the Soviet era. The Soviet Union staunchly resisted Western unilateralism in the region, such as the British and French campaign to secure control of the Suez Canal in 1956 and the 1986 U.S. air strikes on Libya. 

Russia’s condemnation of the extension of UN Resolution 1973 on Libya into a NATO-led regime change mission in 2011 and Moscow’s staunch opposition to UN sanctions against Assad in Syria reveal a pronounced continuity in Soviet policies. The USSR’s active role in protracted conflict resolution negotiations under General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, which included its cosponsorship of the October 1991 Madrid peace talks on Israel–Palestine, has also repeated itself in Moscow’s leadership of the Astana peace negotiations in Syria and ad hoc diplomatic initiatives in Libya.  

Despite some parallels with Soviet status projection efforts, however, Russia’s current diplomatic profile in the Mediterranean region contrasts with the USSR’s approach. While the Soviet Union anchored its foreign policy around a select group of partners—such as Egypt prior to the mid-1970s, Algeria, Syria, and to a lesser extent, Libya—and was openly hostile toward Israel, the Putin administration has prioritized breadth over depth in its formation of partnerships. This policy of “strategic flexibility” mirrors Russia’s “friends with everyone, enemies of none” approach to Middle East diplomacy. In keeping with this policy, Russia has balanced favorable ties with regional adversaries, such as Israel and Syria; Egypt and Turkey; Greece and Turkey; and Morocco and Algeria. As a result, Russia has refrained from establishing close alliances with most countries in the region, with the exception of its military support for Syria, and can easily leverage its UN Security Council permanent membership status and its regional profile to insert itself as an arbiter in the region’s protracted conflicts. 

In spite of Russia’s emphasis on balancing, its diplomatic conduct reflects its dual role as both a disruptor and order-builder in the Mediterranean region. In keeping with its strategy of accruing influence through disruptive tactics, Russia has used diplomacy as a tool of hybrid warfare to advance its geopolitical interests at the expense of regional stability and human rights. Even though a federal solution—which granted Assad control over Damascus and Alawite-majority areas; the Kurds’ jurisdiction over northern Syria’s Rojava region; and the opposition control over its strongholds, like Homs and Idlib—might have resulted in greater stability in Syria, Moscow has consistently used its diplomatic clout to augment Assad’s hegemony. This trend is exemplified in Russia’s enthusiastic support for Syrian constitutional negotiations—which are viewed by the opposition as rubber stamps for Assad’s authority—and decision to broker a pact between the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces and Syrian government forces in October 2019, which increased Damascus’ hegemony over northern Syria. The Kremlin’s leadership in the Astana peace talks is largely aimed at strengthening its partnership with Iran, mitigating tensions with Turkey, and complementing its military intervention in Syria rather than pursuing a lasting peace.  

Russia’s burgeoning diplomatic involvement in Libya follows a similar pattern. In the months leading up to Haftar’s April 2019 offensive on Tripoli, Russia appointed Lev Dengov (a close confidant of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov) as the head of Russia’s Contact Group on a Libyan conflict settlement and diplomatically engaged with representatives from all major factions of the conflict. 

On April 8, just days before the offensive began, Russia blocked a UN Security Council resolution which would have condemned Haftar and engaged with the GNA, in an effort to rapidly freeze the Libyan war when Haftar was in a position of strength. This gambit failed as Russian-brokered peace talks, which were supported by Turkey, collapsed in mid-January. Yet, Moscow continues to use diplomatic negotiations in Libya to advance its military ambitions. These include a long-standing interest in using the country’s deep water ports to expand Russia’s naval reach.  

Notwithstanding its largely self-serving diplomatic initiatives in Syria and Libya, Moscow has also actively supported arbitration efforts aimed at enhancing the stability of the Mediterranean’s fractious regional order. Russia has regularly contributed to international efforts to resolve the Palestinian–Israeli conflict; as recently as December 2019, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the creation of a united Palestian state was essential for stability in the Mediterranean. To that end, Russia has hosted intra-Palestinian negotiations in Moscow to reduce tension between rival factions Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank.

Russia has also supported UN-backed peace initiatives in the western Sahara, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov has engaged closely with Moroccan officials on mitigating a potential conflict in this region. In spite of its strengthened relationship with Turkey, Russia has used its diplomatic clout to condemn Turkish expansionism in the Mediterranean by supporting Cyprus’s sovereignty, urging a deescalation of Greek–Turkish tensions, and opposing Turkey’s controversial maritime security deal with Libya in December 2019. Much like its order-building forays in the economic sphere, Russia’s diplomatic gambits often fail to match their grandiose rhetorical ambitions; but, Moscow still sees its diplomatic influence as critical to the stability of the Mediterranean region.  

The Three-Headed Security Pillar of Russia’s Power Projection
Since Russia’s military intervention in Syria began in September 2015, Moscow’s involvement in Mediterranean security has precipitously increased. Russia provided aerial and ground support for the Syrian army’s offensives on rebel-held territory, deployed private military contractors to Libya, and regularly engaged with France and Italy on transnational security threats emanating from the Mediterranean. Much like Russia’s economic and diplomatic efforts, its profile in the security sphere is a close adaptation of Soviet-era conduct. The first parallel between contemporary Russian and Soviet strategies on Mediterranean security is Russia’s major role as an arms vendor to the region. 

The Soviets supplied Egypt with the military infrastructure that it used in its wars against Israel in 1967 and 1973, was a major supplier of weaponry to Gaddafi’s Libya, and was the origin point for 90 percent of Syria’s arms during the 1970s and 1980s. The USSR’s arms sales to countries in the Mediterranean region were central to its status, but Moscow was occasionally criticized by its Arab partners for not supplying weapons of equal sophistication to those that the United States supplied to Israel. 

Even though Russia’s current Mediterranean strategy is more flexible than its Soviet predecessor, Moscow’s principal arms clients resemble those that it courted during the Cold War. In spite of the Assad regime’s brutal crackdowns on Syrian civilians, Russia upheld its arms deals signed with Syria from 2007–2011, which amounted to $4 billion. Russia’s continued supply of S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to the Syrian army in the face of international condemnations of Assad’s conduct cemented its image as a crisis-proof arms vendor. 

Russian Ambassador to Algeria Igor Belayev noted in July 2018 that, despite its periodic reservations about the quality of Russian arms exports, Algeria accounts for half of Moscow’s weapons sales to Africa. In March 2019, Russia agreed to sell Egypt Su-35 fighter jets worth $2 billion. Yet, Putin has also been less concerned than his Soviet predecessors about using arms sales as a tool of geopolitical influence and has more freely pursued transactional contracts with NATO member countries. In recent years, Russia’s S-300 missile defense system has earned a prominent place in Greece’s military arsenal. Similarly, Turkey purchased Russia’s flagship S-400 missile defense system in July 2019, in spite of the credible threat of retaliatory sanctions from the United States. 

The second pillar of Russia’s Mediterranean security policy that resembles the Soviet past is its efforts to establish itself as a major littoral power in the region. The Soviet Union’s extensive array of naval bases in the Mediterranean—which included Tobruk and Tripoli in Libya; Alexandria and Marsa Matruh in Egypt; Bizerte and Sfax in Tunisia; and Latakia and Tartous in Syria—cemented its status as a military superpower in the Mediterranean region. Under Putin, Russia has sought to recapture this array of bases, but has so far only managed to secure Tartous in Syria and struggled to secure Benghazi in Libya as a second naval installation.  To compensate for these shortcomings, Russia has taken a proactive role participating in military drills in the Mediterranean Sea. The most notable example so far has been the “Arrow of Friendship” joint exercise with Egypt in November 2019. 

The twin role of Russia as a disruptor and stabilizer also readily extends to the sphere of Mediterranean security. Russia has staunchly supported authoritarianism and military-brokered transitions in the region in order to suppress pro-democracy movements and contain the spread of Islamic extremism. Although Russia claimed that it intervened militarily in Syria  to combat the Islamic State, more than 90 percent of airstrikes in late 2015 targeted moderate rebel forces (according to U.S. estimates) and Moscow has routinely used the “terrorist” designation when discussing moderate Syrian opposition forces. Similarly, Russian officials sounded the alarm on the mass emigration of Syrian extremists to Libya months before Turkey’s military intervention on the GNA’s behalf in early January gave these allegations some credence. The Kremlin has unofficially supported Haftar’s offensive on Tripoli as a counterterrorism measure. Russian officials have also equated pro-democracy movements, such as the Arab uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia and 2019 peaceful protests in Algeria, with external interference, and regularly supported authoritarian rule as the antidote to destabilizing alleged “color revolutions” in the region. 

In tandem with these actions, which prop up unpopular or isolated authoritarian regimes, Russia has attempted to contribute constructively to Mediterranean security. By engaging with Lebanese officials at a bilateral level and inviting Lebanon as an observer state to the Astana negotiations, Russia has tried to develop plans to allow the return of refugees to Syria and prevent mass emigration to Turkey or Greece. In December 2019, Lavrov claimed that the Baghdad Information Center—set up in 2015 as part of a joint effort by Russia, Iran, Iraq, and the Syrian government to combat the Islamic State—had been effective in curbing cross-border terrorist attacks between Iraq and Syria, which pose a threat to the broader collective security of the Mediterranean. 

Yet, Moscow’s efforts to frame itself as a major player in Mediterranean security, which are especially evident in bilateral meetings between Russian and Italian officials, often are premised on exaggerations of its influence and historical memory, rather than tangible contributions on the ground. 

The Kremlin’s Extra-Regional Impact
Although it is unlikely to achieve a swift return to the Soviet Union’s superpower status in the Mediterranean, Russia’s diplomatic, economic, and military influence in the region is likely to continue expanding in the years to come. While the country’s official trade volume targets, like the $100 billion figure with Turkey, are often overly optimistic, growth in the 10–20 percent range per annum with major regional powers should not be ruled out. 

The absence of centralized leadership in Libya’s peace process and the spectacular failure of U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Israel and Palestine give Russia clear openings to expand its diplomatic influence in the region. The recent setback of Russia’s military intervention in Libya, which has included Wagner Group (a Russian paramilitary organization) mercenary withdrawals and the failure of its Pantsir-S1 systems to deter Turkish airstrikes, makes the immediate future of its security role the most parlous of its three spheres of influence in the Mediterranean. Yet, this outcome is likely a short-term setback rather than a terminal sea change, and Moscow’s combination of opportunistic acts of disruption and order-building initiatives is likely to continue in the months ahead. 

As Russia’s reputation in the Mediterranean region grows, its principal restraint could come from extra-regional powers rather than failed power projection gambits in the region. The willingness of historic U.S. partners, like Turkey, Egypt, and Algeria, to purchase Russian arms at the risk of retaliatory sanctions (mandated by the 2017 Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) has been met with alarm in the United States. The EU is similarly concerned that Russia will use economic incentives to exploit anti-EU sentiments in the western Balkans and Greece in order to deter EU expansion in Southeastern Europe and push Italy to further soften its position on sanctions against Russia. 

Yet, even in the extra-regional sphere, the narrative is not entirely one of external powers marginalizing Russia. While competition for contracts in Syria could create tensions between Russia and China going forward, Beijing remains a critical supporter of Russian assertiveness in the Mediterranean region. Russia’s willingness to invest in economic reconstruction initiatives in Syria and Libya and to encourage external investments into these conflict zones benefits China’s vision of integrating both countries into its Belt and Road Initiative. Divisions within Europe also benefit Russia, as France’s desire to contain Turkish influence in the eastern Mediterranean and alignment with Haftar in Libya enable Moscow’s goals, even though Paris is staunchly opposed to Assad’s retention of power in Syria. The United States’ growing strategic redirection toward containing China could also alleviate pressure on Russia’s freedom of action moving forward. 

Since the start of Putin’s third term in 2012, Russia has taken decisive steps  toward reviving its Soviet-era status as a major littoral power in the Mediterranean region. Russia’s military intervention in Syria, its S-400 deal with Turkey, the construction of TurkStream pipelines, and resurgence as a major player in Libya have been among the flagship symbols of Moscow’s rising power. As intra-European cleavages and growing U.S. indifference to core aspects of Mediterranean security create openings for new regional and great powers to rise, Russia could see its influence in the Mediterranean region rise precipitously in the foreseeable future.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, European policies toward post-Gaddafi Libya had been criticized for their ineffectiveness and structural deficiencies. When in early March the European Union (EU) became the epicenter of contagion, the credibility of its security and foreign policy further eroded. Although the coronavirus emergency had the potential to spur European countries toward renewed solidarity and greater coordination, what emerged instead was a tendency to turn inward, forcing uncoordinated national responses to the crisis. This transformation risks speeding up some dynamics already underway, such as contracting European political support for external assistance programs—especially regarding the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—in the face of the pandemic’s domestic socioeconomic consequences. Indeed, in the medium and long terms, the political dynamics and mechanisms of alliance that have governed the international system to date risk being among COVID-19’s victims. In particular, this could have serious repercussions in crises such as the six-year devastating civil war raging in Libya, where Europe has already been called upon to intervene to stabilize the country.

In the face of today’s multiple global security challenges, the EU’s internal coherence seems eroded to the point that the union is unable to find a common voice and convergence. This was highlighted in “Westlessness”, the report that opened the Munich Security Conference held in February 2019, intended to stimulate reflections on the failure of Europe as a united geopolitical actor. Traditionally, Western countries have tried to maintain a unity of purpose and some shared distinguishing principles and values, such as the concepts of liberal democracy, human rights, and international cooperation within multilateral institutions.

Since its creation, the EU has attempted to overcome its inherently fragmented nature as a global actor by enhancing its strategic sovereignty and strengthening its “geopolitical” position with the ambition of defending its collective interests and values in a context of great-power competition. However, compared to the decade immediately following the Cold War, the West now appears more fragmented, paralyzed by the reluctance of its members to give up their own sovereignty and delegate decision-making power to Brussels. The 2008 economic crisis; the rise of the so-called sovranist movements, which strongly oppose any Euro-Mediterranean policy; the migration problem; and the terrorist attacks of the last two decades, which consolidated the idea that Europe should became a closed fortress, all enervated the EU and reduced its power to deal with global issues. Moreover, European countries seem to have progressively abandoned multilateral debate given the stances of non-Western actors who have grown increasingly aggressive. The biggest challenge had been from Russia which returned to the Mediterranean following the Syrian and Libyan crises. In addition, regional countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Turkey, and Saudi Arabia are becoming more active in the Mediterranean, and China is growing its geo-economic presence with its Belt and Road Initiative.

Historic internal divisions and an increasingly inward-looking nature have prevented the creation of internal European agreement on the mentioned key issues, constantly undermining the EU’s efficacy.The result is an accelerating loss of its global political ambitions, especially concerning the resolution of serious international conflicts. In particular, in its focus on stabilizing the “arc of instability” in execution of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) —which was designed to manage the EU’s affairs with its southern and eastern neighbors—the EU has nevertheless remained a bystander in the interlinked crises that characterize the MENA region.

The migration crisis and the Libyan civil war, with the consequences of jihadist infiltration and human trafficking along Libya’s out-of-control southern borders, progressively led the EU to converge its efforts only on security cooperation for counterterrorism and limiting migration. Because of this tunnel vision, the EU failed to address the real drivers of regional instability and instead opened the door in the Middle East to the emergence of players such as Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE,which are also taking on a growing role within the international system. This also happened during the Syrian crisis, when the EU appeared extremely intimidated by the rivalry between Russia and the United States or by the bold hostility of medium Middle Eastern powers.

By trapping European governments in a context of rising power competition—where the decrease of the northern shore of the Mediterranean Basin’s influence corresponds to the increase of China’s—and diverting attention toward the immediate health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates these pre-existing dynamics. This perfect storm risks dooming fundamental EU policy areas, such as the Common Security and Defense Policy and the “European agenda” toward migration in the Mediterranean, to fail.

The EU Torn From Within

A sort of “requiem for the European dream”—and for the Mediterranean wing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—is now being sung due to the European institutional failure to effect change in the crises skirting its southern sea. However, it is essential for Europe to rediscover its strategic stabilizing role, especially with regard to the Mare nostrum (the Roman name for the Mediterranean Sea), or, as it has been nicknamed, the “Nightmare Nostrum”.

The need to reaffirm a decisive posture is acutely present in the Libyan crisis, which has direct implications for Europe’s core interests. Since the 2015 Skhirat Agreement, the EU has openly given its support to the government of Tripoli, the Government of National Accord (GNA), by adopting the UN-led political roadmap. However, this backing did not materialize in a strategy for the launch of a concrete national stabilization process through the building of strong local governance structures, despite the GNA’s demand for tangible support at the international level and from Italy in particular. Europe continued to focus its attention on migration and terrorism, failing even to enforce the UN arms embargo and allowing arms deliveries from regional powers allied with the various factions to continue with impunity.

The offensive on Tripoli, launched by Haftar on April 9, 2019, has paved the way for greater interference by external players, definitively placing the EU in the shadows. The Moscow meetingorganized in January by Russia and Turkey with the aim of negotiating a ceasefire between Haftar and the internationally recognized Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj took place without any European participation, underlining the extent to which the EU has been marginalized.

In the same way, although it gave temporary momentum to EU action, the Berlin Conference on Libya in January was soon frozen at the international level and unable to evolve into a coherent, assertive, and effective common policy. Only a few days after the ceasefire agreement, the fragile truce was violated by the rival factions, thereby highlighting the inability of international institutions to decipher realities on the ground and to act accordingly. Clearly, the conference produced more of a reactive policy than a proactive one. It was but a fragile response to Turkish and Russian involvement in Libya, highlighting that the game in the country is played mostly outside its borders—certainly not in Europe or in its most involved countries, like Italy and France.

The destructive rivalry between Italy and France has, until recently, hampered the construction of all possible long-term policies and is one of the main reasons for the European failure to resolve the Libyan conflict. Indeed, competing Italian and French nationalistic stances have reverberated in an extremely negative way on the cooperative management of this issue. France for years, in an attempt to tighten its grip on the country, adopted an ambivalent and ambiguous posture toward the Libyan crisis, ostensibly supporting the UN-mediated peace process but at the same time preferring unilateral action in MENA affairs. France looked to Haftar as a useful political pawn and a partner against terrorism along the Sahel belt, and therefore provided him (illegal) military assistance and diplomatic cover.

Italy, on the contrary, suffered from a lack of presence in its most important regional problem. Italy is the only country that strongly wishes to preserve a united Libya, in line with historic, economic, and energy interests and the need for a centralized government to deal with facing its maritime borders. Rome maintains a strong military, political, economic, and diplomatic presence in Libya; there is an Italian military hospital, for instance, in Misrata. However, Italian action has been weakened for years by Italy’s domestic political and economic crises and by fragile governments with hardly any foreign policy experience and interest.

For Rome, it is a strategic priority to maintain and protect Libyan integrity; yet, despite its support for the Al-Sarraj government, Italy has remained extremely passive both with regard to his ineffectual administrative performance and active military confrontation with Haftar. Italy has also been too passive in supporting the UN peace effort, and has not devised alternative policies or adapted its policy to the evolving scenarios—except for the intelligence sector, which created unofficial links with the Haftar camp.

For a long time, immigration has been the sole priority in domestic and foreign policy, a perception which has left Italy few resources to support its vision of heavy geopolitical, energy, and economic cooperation between Libya and the UN, its neighborhood par excellence, in international forums and alienated many Libyan sympathies.

Italy tried to lead the process of Libyan stabilization, and requested the informal support of the United States, but lacked resources, determination, and clear political will. Recent months have, however, presented Italy with a new chance to have a say in the Libyan conundrum: the EU creation of a new naval military mission, supervision of which has been entrusted to Rome.

In fact, the European Council decision taken at the end of March to replace the 2015 Operation Sophia with a new maritime one called “Irini” should revitalize the European Common Security and Defence Policy. Unlike the Sophia mission, which operated with the aim of disrupting human trafficking across the Mediterranean, Irini’s primary task is to implement the largely ignored arms embargo on Libya(which was imposed by the UN Security Council through Resolution 1970 in 2011 and further enforced through Resolution 2292 in 2016) by patrolling eastward along the Libyan coast, and thuscreate the conditions for a permanent ceasefire.

Yet, despite the good intentions, some technical and legal criticalities are left unfulfilled. The Irini mission will focus only on illegal trade via water, intercepting, as Ankara claims, Turkey (which transfers weapons in support of the GNA mainly along this route) without impacting the illegal land or air traffic routes through which many arms continue to be delivered in support of General Khalifa Haftar’s so-called Libyan National Army (LNA). In June 2020, there was also a naval incident between France and Turkey connected with the Irini mission, which strained their relationship and created a crisis inside NATO. Moreover, the Irini operation lacks clear legislation on penalties for violators; evaluating the effectiveness of the embargo alone as a possible resolution to the Libyan war is useless, especially in light of the recent developments on the ground.

The Balance of Power Changes

Recently, external powers have rapidly rearmed the competing Libyan coalitions, consequently escalating the conflict. After a long stalemate in Haftar’s attacks on Tripoli, the arrival of Russian mercenaries in support of the LNA in September and Syrian militias alongside GNA-allied Turkish troops in January have reactivated the civil war, which now sees new actors as the main game-changers at the expense of traditional players like Europe and the Arab countries. Turkey and Russia have filled the gap left by the disarticulated and hesitant Euro-Atlantic response and the disengagement of the United States, reminding us of how the Berlin Conference failed in its main objective: making external players converge on common decisions. On the contrary, the strengthening of the Russian and Turkish positions within the Libyan crisis has provoked a profound change in the balance of forces on the ground.

The memorandum of understanding on security cooperation signed with Tripoli in December 2019 and the corresponding maritime demarcation agreement—which would allow Ankara to drill for energy resources in Mediterranean areas contested by Greece and Cyprus—are two examples of recent Turkish power plays. The maritime agreement’s language on the borders of exclusive economic zones violates international rules on the delimitation of national waters. But it can also be read as a reaction to the Egyptian, Cypriot, Greek, Israeli, and Italian strategy of excluding Ankara from hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean, which has been done by establishing the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum in July 2019 and containing Turkey’s strategic and economic influence in the Mediterranean and broader Middle East.

Ankara needs to send a powerful signal to actors seeking to marginalize Turkey as well as safeguard its control over energy resources in the Levantine Basin. In fact, although the country is at the center of the oil and gas exports bound for Europe from Russia and the Caspian Sea countries, it imports about 75 percent of its energy needs, mainly from Russia, Iraq, and Iran. These are the necessities that led Turkey to enter the game in Libya, supplying the Al-Serraj government with shiploads of weapons, military equipment, officers, and militias moved out from Syria. Military presence on the ground, moreover, could assure further benefit for Turkish consumer goods and construction companies on the Libyan market and act as a guarantee for its ideological ambition of reigniting Islamic political activism, which is obsessively feared by Haftar’s backers in the Gulf.

To counterbalance the Turkish presence, Russia—already siding with the LNA alongside Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia—has strengthened the presence of mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a shadowy paramilitary organization which is fighting with Haftar’s front, by sending military fighter aircraft to support it. Like Turkey, Russia wishes to reestablish its pre-Gaddafi commercial ties with Libya and regain geopolitical prominence in the region.

On March 26, 2020, the GNA, in response to continuous attacks by the LNA, launched the “Peace Storm” counteroffensive, which in a short time was able to repel Haftar’s forces from the western coast. Turkish air defense systems and a drone assisted by targeting Haftar’s bases and supply lines, destroying the project to conquer Tripoli. The project succeeded in capturing the city of Tarhuna, the last stronghold of the LNA. Additionally, the GNA forces took control of the al-Watiya airbase, ninety miles southwest of the capital. Its conquest has high strategic value due to its proximity to the capital and to the city of Zintan, which has always been pro-Haftar and remained steadfastly in the hands of his forces since August 2014. Moreover, its capture will allow the GNA’s troops to repel Haftar’s fighters in southern Tripoli. For Turkey, control of this airbase could be an opportunity to establish a permanent military presence in the area.

Now, the GNA’s sights are set on the reconquest of the city of Sirte. However, they do so at the expense of conflict with Egypt; on July 20, just two days after GNA troops left for Sirte from Misrata, the Egyptian parliament authorized direct military action in defense of the city.

An Exit Strategy?

At the moment, everything leads one to think that there is room only for “army diplomacy”; Moscow would like to avoid becoming more entrenched in the conflict, yet a complete defeat of the general would hamper its multifaceted regional aspirations. The Kremlin’s strategy is to achieve the upper hand in mediating from a position of strength for a possible future comprehensive agreement with Turkey; therefore, Haftar might represent a negotiating pawn beyond Libya’s internal dynamics.

In turn, Ankara could accept the carving of Libya into spheres of influence within a “grand bargain,” with Russia involving Syria and the strategic and economic relations between the two countries. From this perspective, the future of Libya could be shaped at the expense of the other actors, Europeans above all. Maintaining the chaos in Libya could fuel the irregular migration problem, which threatens the EU domestically; additionally, the moving of Islamist fighters provides Turkey with a tool to fragment the EU from within.

In a situation of humanitarian crisis, according to Human Rights Watch, around two hundred thousand civilians in western Libya have already been displaced from their homes; Libyans who have not lost their homes have been locked down to prevent the spread of COVID-19; all live under continuous military attacks, even against clinics and hospitals; and all this while the country falls into a heavy economic crisis. According to the National Oil Corporation, Libya’s cumulative losses from the oil blockade imposed by Haftar-allied forces since January 19 have neared $5 billion, enough to bring the country to its knees and render it unable to cover even 10 percent of salaries.

 How can the EU rise from the ashes of the pandemic while avoiding moving toward geopolitical irrelevance? One priority could be to re-engage with Libya, despite these difficult times, with a serious political, economic, and—if necessary—military commitment.

The current crisis has revealed the inadequacy of existing mechanisms, instead requiring renewed coordination and cooperation among the EU member states. First of all, the EU should think about fostering a new collective policy, defending and promoting its role as global actor, and adapting its geopolitical agenda to the post-pandemic scenario. Strengthening multilateral cooperation through a single framework of action for the EU’s external response, together with the relaunch of bilateral engagement, could represent the first necessary step.

Regarding the Libyan crisis, the EU should pursue a comprehensive strategy: enhancing multilateral initiatives and bilateral engagements with the regional states directly involved in that country while trying to change the belief that Libya is a zero-sum game into a more collaborative perspective. This implies that Europe must first rediscover its internal solidarity, putting aside the miserable rivalry that has fragmented and disfigured the original values of the union. But there is also a need for greater military engagement: that is, to reinforce the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy and provide the Irini mission with real sanction mechanisms. Though this is an extremely ambitious—perhaps even an unlikely—task, looking at the internal state of the union, it is the only credible path if the EU wants to avoid becoming irrelevant in the Mediterranean.

The discovery of natural gas resources since 2009 in the Eastern Mediterranean has enhanced the region’s strategic energy significance and raised the possibility of multilateral cooperation and economic development. Greece’s continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) are part of the Levantine Basin, which, according to a 2010 U.S. geological survey, could hold as much as 120 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas. Thus, Greece’s seabed could contain considerable oil and gas deposits.

This reality has prompted the country to proceed with a round of international licensing in 2014 and a “concession upon request” round in 2017 for the exploration and development of maritime blocks in the Ionian Sea and the Greek island of Crete. Both calls attracted international and national energy companies. The awarding of licenses in 2018 to the consortium of French company Total, America’s Exxon Mobil, and Hellenic Petroleum for hydrocarbon exploration and production in two offshore blocks in the west and southwest of Crete is considered a major milestone.

From a hydrocarbon exploration point of view, offshore Crete represents a frontier area. Existing petroleum geological systems have not been tested and no wells have been drilled so far in the area. Offshore Crete faces two major challenges—a combination of complex geological history and ultra-deep waters exceeding three thousand meters in most of the area. Geologic similarities with Egypt’s Zohr gas field, however, raise prospects for significant hydrocarbon discoveries by the consortium of the three companies (French Total, American Exxon Mobil, and Hellenic Petroleum), which are considered qualified enough to conduct successful deep-water exploration because of their advanced expertise and robust financial magnitude.

Greece has also awarded several concession licenses in the Ionian Sea to international energy companies. For example, the concession in the Gulf of Patraikos was awarded to the consortium of Hellenic Petroleum and Italy’s Edison; another in West Corfu was awarded to Total, Hellenic Petroleum, and Edison; and, the onshore blocks in the Aitoloakarnania and Ioannina regions were awarded to Spain’s Repsol and Greece’s Energean. This is all part of Greece’s vision to exploit its energy resources to get tangible benefits for its national economy and local communities, as well as upgrade its regional energy standing.

Greece has emerged as a new energy player in the Eastern Mediterranean that looks eager to develop its own indigenous and regional gas resources and holds a special value as a gateway for regional gas supplies to Europe. Key challenges remain, however, such as the complex geology and the high cost of exploration and drilling activities in deep and ultra-deep waters throughout Greece, as well as differences over maritime delimitation boundaries with neighboring Turkey in the Aegean and Libyan seas. The settling of competing maritime claims between Greece and Turkey, either through mediation, judicial settlement or arbitration, is a priority for Athens.

Greece’s Partnerships in the Region
Greece’s energy footprint is expanding considerably in the Eastern Mediterranean from its current areas of operation to energy fields in Israel, Egypt, and elsewhere in the region. Greek Energean company contributes to the sustainable development of energy resources in Israel. The company owns and operates the Israeli Karish and Tanin gas fields, which hold an estimated 2.1 trillion cubic feet of gas and 41 million barrels of light hydrocarbon liquids. The first flow of gas into Israel’s market is expected in the first quarter of 2021 and is intended to meet rapidly growing domestic demand as well as supply neighboring countries. The fields’ gas discoveries are planned to be linked to Energean’s Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel, which is considered to be a significant regional piece of infrastructure because it replaces high-cost undersea pipelines. In addition, Israel awarded Energean five new offshore exploration licenses within its EEZ.

Interestingly, the Greek energy company acquired from Italian company Edison already-producing assets in Egypt like the deep-water North Thekah concession, which lies close to the Egyptian giant Zohr field and the Israeli Tamar and Leviathan gas fields. Discussions have also been held between Energean and the Palestinian Authority on developing the Gaza Marine gas field that is estimated to hold around 1 trillion cubic feet of gas. These discussions are currently stalled due to political differences between Palestine and Israel. However, the solid relationship between Energean and both the Israeli and Palestinian sides makes the company a suitable partner when political circumstances become ripe.

Greece is pursuing a multidimensional strategy that centers not only on developing its native energy resources, but also on fully exploring its potential to become a European gateway for regional gas through the execution of infrastructure projects to transport gas. These infrastructure projects include the Trans-Adriatic (TAP) and Eastern Mediterranean Gas pipelines. The latter has been approved in an official agreement between Israel, Greece, and Cyprus in January 2020. The pipeline will stretch for almost 1,900 kilometers from Israel’s and Cyprus’s gas reserves and will reach Otranto in Italy, via Crete and mainland Greece. A study on the project shows that the link is feasible, even though it presents technical challenges due to laying the pipeline in deep and ultra-deep waters, while the estimated cost of its construction could reach 6.2 billion euros ($7.36 billion).

The pipeline’s near-term economic outlook is challenging if one bases the project on today’s spot market and not in the context of a long-term liquefied natural gas export option. To highlight the latter perspective, Energean company signed an interim agreement with the Greek operator of the pipeline to funnel 2 billion cubic meters of gas annually to Greece from fields it owns in Israel. Concurrently, Greece is developing its single liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal along with a floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) in order to increase the resilience of the regional distribution systems and to lower consumer costs through extended competition. The Revithoussa LNG onshore terminal located southwest of Athens has been upgraded twice to manage bigger LNG volumes and maintain increased LNG gasification capacity with the aim of turning Greece into a natural gas hub and reinforcing security of the gas supply for the country and the extended region.

The terminal already receives American LNG shipments, highlighting the prospect of Greece becoming a bigger LNG importer than pipe-gas importer in accordance with the ongoing transformation of global LNG markets. Moreover, the swift construction of the offshore FSRU in the city of Alexandroupolis in northeast Greece for the transfer of LNG to the Balkans and Southeast Europe has attracted U.S. and European support because it enhances the diversification of Europe’s energy resources and the funneling of American LNG to the wider region. These infrastructure projects can enhance regional cooperation, alter the energy map of Europe, and render Greece a regional energy hub.

 The Significance of Regional Partnerships
Developing energy infrastructure, drilling operations, and production is time-consuming and financially prohibitive when there are competing claims over energy resources between countries. Therefore, energy exploration and development in the Eastern Mediterranean must be a cooperative enterprise rather than a zero-sum game.  Based on this reality, Greece cooperates with countries in the region for the development and transportation of energy resources, and is an integral part of the Greece–Egypt–Cyprus and Greece–Israel–Cyprus tripartite partnerships and the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum.

The tripartite partnership between Cyprus, Egypt, and Greece was inaugurated with the signing of the Cairo Declaration in November 2014, and it focuses on energy cooperation that is developed through high-level political and technical meetings. Communiques that come out of political meetings continuously emphasize that the delimitation of maritime zones between the three countries should be based on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and stress the importance of respecting Greek sovereign rights and Cypriot jurisdiction over their respective EEZs. They also call on Turkey to cease all seismic survey activities within Cypriot maritime zones.

The Greece–Israel–Cyprus tripartite partnership, known as the “Energy Triangle,” commenced in 2013 with the signing of an Energy Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The energy partnership focuses on the protection of critical energy infrastructure in the Eastern Mediterranean, energy cooperation, and the execution of the 2,000-mega-watt EuroAsia Interconnector, which will create an electricity highway from Israel and Cyprus to Greece through which Europe will receive electricity produced by Israeli and Cypriot gas resources. Six trilateral summits have been conducted so far at the prime ministerial level and the last summit attracted U.S. participation as observer. The Greece–Israel–Cyprus partnership has over the years broadened its scope from energy to security and economic development issues.

Driven by a broad regional commitment to enhanced security and energy cooperation, the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum was established in Cairo in 2019. Founding members include Greece, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Italy, and Cyprus. The forum is practically a regional cooperation platform of dialogue between governments and aims to become an avenue of communication between states and the energy industry, as well as a clearing house for ideas and plans for mutually beneficial energy development in the region. The strategic gains of each country’s membership in the forum are multifold, ranging from Israeli presence in a regional forum comprised of Arab countries to Egypt’s renewed Arab leadership role, as well as Greece’s engagement in a multilateral coalition-building that favors joint development of energy infrastructure and dialogue in resolving EEZ disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is noteworthy that France and the United States have submitted formal requests to join the forum; the U.S. request seems to be driven by its interest to protect regional energy infrastructure owned or operated by American companies and is in line with the Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Act of 2019 passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.

The Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act of 2019, also known as the East Med Act, acknowledges that the recent discovery of what may be the region’s largest natural gas field off the Egyptian coast, as well as the newest discoveries of natural gas off the coast of Cyprus, could represent a significant and positive development for the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, enhancing the region’s strategic energy significance.

The Act specifies that the United States along with Israel, Greece, and Cyprus oppose any action in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Seas that could challenge stability, violate international law, or undermine good neighborly relations, and in a joint declaration on March 21, 2019, they agreed to “defend against external malign influences in the Eastern Mediterranean and the broader Middle East”.

This is an important segment of the unfolding American energy strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean that is based on three pillars. First, support of energy exploration activities to enhance U.S. interests by providing potential alternatives to Russian gas for U.S. allies and partners. Second, support of the trilateral dialogue on energy cooperation between Israel, Greece, and Cyprus, as well as the encouragement of U.S. companies to make investments in energy infrastructure projects. Third, rejection of interference by other countries in Cyprus’s EEZ and Greece’s airspace, and support of security cooperation with regional countries, not only for the protection of critical infrastructure from unauthorized intrusion or terrorism, but also for the maintenance of stability.

Overall, Washington seems to realize that the security of partners and allies in the Eastern Mediterranean region is critical to the security of the United States. To this end, when it comes to Greece, Washington is committed to maintaining a vigorous naval presence in the naval facility at Souda Bay in the Greek island of Crete, continuing the deployment of the unmanned aerial vehicle MQ-9 Reaper to the Larissa Air Force base in northern Greece, and conducting U.S. army helicopter training in central Greece.

Avenues of Settlement for Greece–Turkey Tensions
As a result of large gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean, political tensions caused by competing EEZ claims between littoral countries like Greece and Turkey harm regional energy cooperation. The region has experienced two major developments over the past year that have had an impact on regional energy dynamics. The first is the signing of an MoU between Turkey and Libya on the demarcation of maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean, and the second is the conducting of drilling operations by the Turkish Yavuz and Fatih vessels within Cyprus’ EEZ and naval violations in part of the southeastern Aegean Sea.

Both developments disregard the presence of Greek islands in maritime areas, including the islands of Crete and Kastelorizo, and violate their right to generate maritime zones as stipulated in Article 121 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). According to the UNCLOS, a coastal state can exercise sovereign rights such as fishing, research, and exploration within its continental shelf up to 200 nautical miles from its shores. The Turkey–Libya MoU ignores the sovereign rights not only of Greece, but also of Cyprus and Egypt. Despite the declared Turkish position that islands in the Eastern Mediterranean should carry no weight in the determination of maritime boundaries, the MoU cites Turkish islands and rocks as base points for the delimitation of maritime areas based on the “equidistance line”, and ignores the geographical fact that Turkey and Libya have neither overlapping maritime zones nor shared  boundaries. The motives behind Turkey’s signing of the MoU with Libya lies in breaking its regional energy isolation and making legal claims over maritime areas that the Eastern Mediterranean’s energy infrastructure, like the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Pipeline, will have to cross.

Turkey’s oil and gas exploration drive extends from the west of Cyprus to the southeast of the Greek island of Crete and the offshore waters of Libya. Turkey consistently adopts “gunboat diplomacy” in pursuit of its energy and foreign policy goals by employing naval power to imply the threat of war should its claims not be accepted.

This was particularly evident with ‘Blue Homeland 2019’, the largest ever Turkish naval exercise, which deployed over 100 military ships and thousands of soldiers in an area that extended from the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean regions. A Navigational Telex, an advisory to ships, was issued by Ankara during the naval exercise, blocking off maritime areas in the southeast Aegean including the continental shelf of the Greek islands of Kastelorizo and Rhodes, as well as the Cyprus EEZ. The naval exercise, like others that preceded it, combined power projection with naval diplomacy and competition over energy geopolitics and demonstrated Ankara’s politico-military regional agenda for the coming years.

It is in this context that Greece moves diplomatically at the European and international levels to denounce Turkey’s illegal actions in Greek maritime areas and to seek resolution for delimitation issues with Turkey in accordance with the international Law of the Sea. Specifically, Greece as a member of the European Union (EU) has been instrumental in discussions that led to the European Council’s adoption of a framework of restrictive measures on Turkey because of its unauthorized drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean. European-level discussions have also led the European Council to acknowledge that the Turkey–Libya MoU infringes upon the sovereign rights of third states, does not comply with the Law of the Sea, and cannot produce any legal consequences for those third states. Concurrently, Greece sent two letters to the UN secretary-general and the presidency of the Security Council in December 2019 pointing out that Turkey and Libya should abstain from any act that might violate Greece’s sovereign rights and escalate regional tensions.

In fact, Greece has traditionally stood solidly for dialogue with Turkey to settle bilateral differences. Sixty rounds of exploratory talks have already taken place between the two countries since 1999 with the aim of reaching an agreed settlement over the delimitation of the respective continental shelf and territorial waters. The Greek position on the delimitation of maritime boundaries adopts the contractual provisions of the UNCLOS, which concede a coastal state’s exclusive rights on its continental shelf to an area that extends to a minimum width of 200 nautical miles, on the condition that the distance between its coast and that of another state permits this. Article 121 of the UNCLOS also determines that islands have a right to territorial sea, contiguous zones, EEZ, and continental shelf in line with provisions applied in mainland areas. Greece stands solidly behind the delimitation of maritime areas on the principle of equidistance/median line as outlined in the UNCLOS. These provisions are part of customary law that is also binding for states that are not signatory to the UNCLOS like Turkey.

Ankara has repeatedly rejected the adoption of the provisions of international   law to settle its maritime differences with Greece on the basis of the equidistance/medium line principle, and it pursues a self-contradictory strategy that is translated into selective enforcement of the UNCLOS. Practically, on the one hand, Turkey rejects provisions for the delimitation of maritime areas with Greece. But on the other hand, Ankara has made EEZ delimitation agreements with its neighbors in the Black Sea on the basis of the equidistance/medium line principle as stipulated by international law.

Thus, the lack of common ground in the context of bilateral exploratory talks between Greece and Turkey paves the way for exploring other avenues for a possible settlement of differences such as mediation, arbitration, or judicial settlement. Mediation can prove to be an important tool in resolving Greek–Turkish maritime disputes that partly impede the unlocking of the Eastern Mediterranean’s energy potential. Major powers like the United States and the European Union are effective mediators because they hold vast experience in conflict resolution. In addition, both the United States and the EU have solid motives to offer mediation over the delimitation of maritime areas between Greece and Turkey. For the United States, it is in its national security interests to promote and maintain energy security among its allies. For the EU, the settlement of maritime differences between Greece and Turkey can lead to regional stability and enhance the European strategy to diversify energy resources.

Judicial settlement is another avenue for the settlement of maritime differences between Greece and Turkey. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the leading UN judicial entity that produces binding rulings in disputes between states that have agreed to appeal to the Court. The ICJ has extensive experience in settling interstate differences over delimitation of the continental shelf between states, such as the delimitation of the maritime boundary in the Gulf of Maine Area in 1981, the demarcation of the Black Sea in 2007, and the North Sea continental shelf cases in 1969. Greece appealed unilaterally to the ICJ in 1976 because of Turkish violations in the Greek continental shelf, but no ruling has been issued because Turkey invoked non-recognition of the court’s mandatory jurisdiction. Nowadays, prospects of appealing to the ICJ have been renewed because the accession of Turkey to the EU is tied to settling Greek-Turkish differences over the continental shelf.

Another option to settle competing maritime claims between Greece and Turkey is an appeal before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). The tribunal has jurisdiction over any maritime dispute that is generated by the interpretation and enforcement of UNCLOS. The tribunal accepts appeals by states that are parties to the convention of the Law of the Sea, like Greece, and states that are not parties to the convention, like Turkey, but only after there is an agreement conferring the jurisdiction of the tribunal. Again, the case can be referred to appeal before the tribunal only if the two countries agree.

Another avenue is arbitration before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), which offers dispute resolution between states over maritime zones and navigational rights. The PCA has served as registry for thirteen arbitrations under the 1982 UNCLOS, including the “Philippines arbitration case vs China over the South China Sea”, which can serve as a model for the settlement of competing maritime claims between Greece and Turkey. Greece can formally lodge its arbitration case unilaterally before the PCA under the UNCLOS.  The advantage of appealing to the PCA is that findings are legally binding; the disadvantage is that UNCLOS has no enforcement body, and Turkey is expected to ignore any ruling that will not satisfy its interests.

Unquestionably, Greece is a uniquely positioned country to not only develop indigenous and regional gas fields in the East Mediterranean, but also to transport energy from the Eastern Mediterranean to Europe. To this end, Greece is pursuing active diplomacy and coalition building, which has lit the engines of energy cooperation, demonstrating that regional mechanisms and partnerships are not mere talking shops, but are instead designers of a grand energy strategy.

The past decade has witnessed a sea change in relations between the two sides of the Mediterranean—southern Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). From a high point in 2011, when the European Union backed the largely unsuccessful Arab uprisings in the hope of seeing a new democratic dispensation take root, its approach to the MENA region has changed fundamentally. Once a generally benign partner, with normative as well as economic attractions, the EU has retreated to the European trenches as the perceived twin threats of irregular migration and terrorism have come to dominate its stance. The mantra of its 2016 Global Strategy, that the EU’s own security is inextricably linked to what happens in the wider world, was to an extent aimed at the Southern Mediterranean.

This, together with resurgent authoritarianism in MENA after the uprisings, and the rise of populism in many European countries, has led to a much more cautious EU stance toward its neighbors. To reconfigure the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s famous adage, it is now more a case of “think not of what you can do for the region, but what the region might do to you.” This narrowing of European interest, added to U.S. disengagement not only from the MENA region but also, since the advent of the Trump administration, from Europe itself, has been one of the prime reasons why there has been an opening up of space for others, notably Russia and Turkey, to appear on the regional stage, and not always constructively.

At the time of writing, with most of the EU (along with much of the Mediterranean) locked down in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the instinct to retreat to the laager is stronger than ever. While many EU leaders pay lip service to the fact that the pandemic is a global challenge—and if it is to be beaten at home Europe will need to match domestic programs with measures to quell it abroad—one is bound to wonder just how much energy and resources they will really devote to the overseas dimension.

So, this is not the most auspicious of times to peer into the crystal ball and consider the future of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), the EU’s main vehicle for its political, trade, and development policies and financial cooperation with the ten states that comprise its southern neighborhood. But for all of the clouds overhead and on the horizon, the fact is that Europe simply cannot afford to turn its back on the MENA region. For one thing, the message of the EU’s 2016 Global Strategy still resonates today: Instability in the neighborhood, if not addressed, will in one way or another continue to threaten the European way of life at home.

A Region, and Relationship, Under Stress

Since 2016, the situation has, if anything, worsened. The war in Syria may be reaching its final stages, but a sustainable political solution is nowhere in sight; 40 percent of the population remains displaced, either internally or abroad; and there is a massive need for reconstruction of the country. Libya’s conflict also drags on, with the two sides at a stalemate. The prospects for a lasting peace in the Middle East have deteriorated even further, with the advent of the US “peace plan”, and the associated risk of Israeli annexation of Palestinian territory, something that could also have serious consequences for Jordan and for its peace treaty with Israel. Lebanon faces an acute political and economic crisis and additionally continues to struggle with the fallout from Syria. Egypt has been unable to quell terrorism in North Sinai. Finally, while violent extremism may have abated somewhat since the defeat of Da’esh, these conflicts and others, if they fester, can present opportunities for a resurgence of terrorism in the region and beyond, not least in Europe itself.

As far as Syria is concerned, the EU has been reluctant to respond to demands for reconstruction funding so long as the Assad regime refuses to make any meaningful political reforms or security guarantees for returnees and internally displaced persons. The regime may well use the pandemic to intensify pressure on Europe to change course, but there needs to be a quid pro quo before Europe can become involved.

Although EU institutions are becoming more involved in security matters and have in recent years developed some important capacities, notably in policing, border management, and maritime security, they are not yet seen as natural partners for conflict prevention or resolution by many MENA governments, especially those with powerful military establishments and intelligence services. The strengthening of the security state in the MENA region, whether overtly, as in Egypt, or more covertly elsewhere, has led to a gap in understanding. The obstacles encountered by the EU in deploying security experts to EU delegations in the region are a good example of this.

This begs the question of how the EU can be more effective as a security partner. There may be some improvements in the quality of future engagement as the EU and MENA states increasingly work together in operations such as naval coordination to address irregular migration, but until and unless a “European Army” emerges or democracy blooms in the MENA region, neither of which is very likely in the foreseeable future, these gains will probably be marginal.

Some EU member states do of course have longstanding relationships with MENA militaries and security institutions. Those ties certainly help, and indeed are fundamental, in cases where the EU decides to act as one. But where there is no effective common position, they sometimes work at cross purposes. For example, some member states continue arms sales to MENA countries, while others criticize these transactions for fueling regional conflict and endangering human rights. This particular situation is made worse by the fact common positions are not always respected. For example, in 2013 the EU decided to limit commerce involving items that could be used for “internal oppression” in the context of arms sales to Egypt. Differing interpretations by member states of what weaponry was covered by this provision, together with a lack of enforcement, have severely weakened the measure, not to mention the credibility of the EU in general.

Libya and Middle East Peace: Pitfalls and Opportunities for the EU

Divisions among member states have also hindered the European Union’s ability to act in a constructive manner in Libya. Even when the EU has come together to attempt to restore stability in the North African country, there are serious doubts about whether it can be effective. The new operation “Irini”, designed to police the United Nations arms embargo, leans toward controlling weapons delivered by sea, which puts the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli at a disadvantage vis-à-vis Khalifa Haftar’s rival forces, which obtain the lion’s share of their arms by air or land.

Among other things, Irini papers over the cracks in the divergent approaches of two major member states. On the one hand there is France, which de jure supports the UN peace process but de facto sees Haftar as a better bet for “stabilization”, especially in the south, where Paris worries about the consequences of Libya’s insecure border areas for its counterterror operations in the Sahel. On the other hand is Italy, which is mainly concerned about irregular migration and sees the GNA as a key partner for addressing this.

So long as these two key players are on different pages, Europe’s declared support for a political solution will be half-hearted in practice. Libya could be an opportunity for Europeans to raise their game when it comes to defusing conflict, however. The EU, under the leadership of its presidents and High Representative Josep Borrell, French President Macron, and Italian Prime Minister Conte, needs to unify its act in Libya and fully support the UN-led search for peace in word and deed. It has every interest in doing so, for it is Europe that pays the highest price of instability in Libya.

Neither of the two main Libyan players will be able to “win” militarily in the conflict. Moreover, the current stalemate, with its potential to spur a revival of migration crises, terrorism, and further suffering for the Libyan people and migrants who are hosted there, benefits no one except extremist groups, human smuggling gangs, and shady arms dealers. The Covid-19 pandemic adds new urgency to peace efforts, not least through its fallout for the oil trade which Libya depends on so heavily.

The second area in which the EU could quickly burnish its political credentials is in the Middle East peace process (for want of a better term). The U.S. “peace plan” and associated abandonment of any semblance of being an honest broker for peace have put the two-state solution, or perhaps more accurately, Palestinian self-determination, in dire peril. As Israel moves toward annexation of Palestinian territory, it is vital that the EU pushes back robustly.

Failure to do so would not only seriously harm relations with the MENA region as a whole and be a gift to extremists everywhere looking for new succor, but would also undermine the very essence of the Union, built as it is on respect for international law. If and when annexation proceeds, the EU needs to be ready to apply appropriate sanctions—the EU reaction to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 demands consistency here; to bolster its existing position and trade policy on illegal Israeli settlements; and to encourage those member states who have not already done so to recognize Palestine as a state. That may not make such a state real, but it will give some hope to a people who have been starved of it for far too long.

In the realm of diplomacy, it is doubtful whether any new peace initiative from Europe, or anywhere else for that matter, is feasible in the current climate—neither of the main parties in Israel are likely to engage, and this will probably be the case for years to come. However, the day will come when peace is back on the table, and this makes international protection of Palestinian rights and dignity all the more important.

Windows for Economic and Social Collaboration

Turning to economic and social priorities, the EU remains easily the most prominent investor and largest trading partner for all MENA countries. Shared economic interests between Europe and the MENA region have been boosted by the new gas finds in the Eastern Med, with the prospect of a welcome new source of energy that could help the continent reduce its dependence on Russian supplies.

That said, the appearance of Covid-19 has profoundly affected economic prospects everywhere. It is of course impossible to predict with any precision the impact of the pandemic, but it is clear that both sides of the Mediterranean are likely to be hit hard. In Europe, massive state-led domestic economic recovery efforts, whether by member states or EU institutions, will pile up sovereign debt, reduce fiscal space, and potentially squeeze aid budgets, thus jeopardizing Europe’s financial capacity to maintain assistance programs. While the southern neighborhood will continue to be prioritized, it is by no means clear that the level of funding under the ENP will be maintained, let alone increased. Even before the havoc wreaked by Covid-19, the ongoing EU budget discussions were becoming difficult due to the loss of a major net contributor through Brexit and other factors.

Furthermore, the pandemic’s negative effects on oil and gas markets could last for some time, meaning that MENA countries’ revenues from their own hydrocarbons and the capacity of Gulf Cooperation Council countries to support them financially could also be reduced considerably, at least in the short term. Just as serious, tourism, a mainstay of many MENA economies and a large source of employment, could remain depressed for some time as people in Europe and elsewhere take time to regain the confidence to travel again.

Any economic recovery from the crisis is going to depend critically on a revival of trade and investment, especially for Europe. It is here that the prospects for EU–Med relations might just be a little brighter, provided both sides bring a new injection of economic vision. The main trade initiative of the current ENP, the EU offer of a deep and comprehensive free trade area, has borne little fruit in the MENA region. Only two countries, Morocco and to a lesser extent Tunisia, are engaging seriously. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that the EU had been slow to provide further openings in key sectors for MENA countries.

On the other hand, countries like Egypt and Algeria have been rather skeptical of the EU’s efforts to further reduce trade barriers and tend to view trade through mercantilist eyes as a zero-sum game. They also cultivate a class of inefficient crony companies who jealously guard the protection and monopolies afforded them. As such, there is widespread suspicion among MENA governments of the “win-win” solutions touted by free traders.

Both sides need to change tack if trade and investment, which virtually all analysts agree is far below its potential, is to take off as it should. Europe should be less hesitant in its own offers, for example in agricultural trade, where the south enjoys a number of largely unrealized comparative advantages. At the same time, MENA countries should jettison the failed protectionist policies of the past. Some will argue that in the absence of serious political reform it is naïve to imagine that governments would be interested in such a move.

There are precedents, however. For example, the opening of the Egyptian economy during the last years of the Mubarak era produced a period of relatively high growth. Even if the failure to distribute that growth equitably was one of the factors behind the Egyptian revolution, a salutary lesson, that the economy responded so well to those policies showed that liberalization can produce significant benefits. The more recent experience of Morocco’s economic liberalization is also well worth considering. Anyone who has lived in the MENA region knows that there is no shortage of entrepreneurial skills and imagination among its people; the problem is mainly with their governments.

Europe is far and away the most significant international political and financial supporter of MENA civil societies, though efforts in the fields of rights and democratization have been tempered by the need to work with largely unsympathetic governments. That is not to say that such support should not continue. If anything, it should be expanded: apart from normative considerations, civil society is a crucial element in delivering public services across the region. Indeed, many of the EU-funded development programs could not function without it.

The other area of cooperation with real promise for the coming years is the fight against climate change. Mediterranean countries are particularly vulnerable to this challenge, and the EU has made climate change its top priority, notably with its new “Green Deal”. European financial commitments for renewable energy in the south, particularly through European Investment Bank loans and ENP grants for wind and solar projects, are already significant. As renewable energy costs continue to fall, and should oil and gas prices remain depressed, there is great potential for further investments of this kind, including from the private sector.

Addressing these issues will require stronger cooperation with other external players in the region, not least the Gulf Cooperation Council. Here, the new Euro–Arab summit forum, which was launched last year in Cairo and brings together the leaders of all Arab League and EU member states and institutions, could make an important contribution, provided it focuses on areas of common interest, such as economic development in MENA. But if it is to play an effective role, the parties will have to better prepare for future exchanges than they did for the first meeting.

Finally, one should not forget that the people-to-people aspects of the EU–MENA relationship, whether through the large Med communities residing in the EU or historic cultural ties, are as strong as ever. These are especially hard times, full of uncertainty for Europe, the MENA region, and beyond, but the case for re-energizing the European Union’s relationship with MENA countries has perhaps never been stronger. With the Covid-19 crisis preoccupying everyone, it is anyone’s guess as to whether the two sides will show the necessary leadership, vision, and wherewithal for such an enterprise. One thing is for sure: The status quo ante will not endure in the post-pandemic world, and reliance on old ways will be to the detriment of all.

The recent discoveries of significant new natural gas resources in the Eastern Mediterranean provokes obvious questions about public policy. Primary among these are how the new resources might be exploited and shared among the governments and ultimately the peoples of the region.

So far, this has given rise to the creation in July 2019 of the Eastern Mediterranean Natural Gas Forum (EMGF) with member states Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Cyprus, Greece, and Italy. It is assumed by some that this forum might lay the grounds for regional economic cooperation, perhaps leading to the eventual creation of the proposed Eastern Mediterranean Prosperity Zone. While this is a noble aim, it may prove difficult to attain in practice. Obstacles arise on a number of different levels, the first and most obvious is the intra-regional rivalries between the various states involved, highlighted by the exclusion of both Turkey and the northern territory of Cyprus—despite the inclusion of Israel and the Palestinian Authority—from the EMFG.

A second major constraint to making progress on natural gas discoveries is the restraint generated by the global legal rules governing trade, debt, investment, and “development”.

The prospects of national or regional development in the so-called “developing world” (an interesting misnomer for a large collection of countries systematically precluded from development) must be assessed in light of this global/legal architecture which regulates international trade and finance. This architecture is manifested primarily in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO), and consequently needs to be analyzed through the lens of these institutions’ histories and actions. This process of analysis involves a fundamental reconsideration of public international law (PIL) and its constitution within an ongoing colonial project. In short, PIL and colonialism were and continue to be deeply entangled. This provides a constraint of which policy professionals cannot afford to remain ignorant.

Even if we take for granted that the new natural gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean will provide resource windfalls to the states concerned, we cannot also assume that those states will have a free hand in deciding how to utilize that windfall.

The natural gas field named Leviathan, with the capacity of 509 billion cubic meters, was discovered in 2010 in Israeli waters. The Aphrodite gas field with natural gas reserves of 198 billion cubic meters was discovered by the Republic of Cyprus’ in 2011. In 2015, the Zohr field, which has 850 billion cubic meters of natural gas and contains the largest natural gas reserves in this basin, was discovered within Egypt’s maritime waters.

It obviously would be preferable from a policy perspective if the proceeds from these new resources could be used to promote regional economic integration and national development. States in the developing world are, after all, notoriously bereft of industrial infrastructure, leaving them to be largely exporters of unprocessed raw materials, and importers of processed and manufactured goods. Under these conditions, the terms of trade are inexorably biased against such countries as the price of raw materials remains static while the price of processed and manufactured goods increases. In other words, any nation that wishes to develop toward the economic prosperity we associate with the so-called “Global North” must develop its national manufacturing base in order to realize the true value of its resources. It is in the processing of natural resources that true economic value is added.

This is precisely what is being proposed in the transformation of the EMGF from a forum for discussion into a regional cooperation mechanism. Those proposing such an institutional evolution—which would allow for cooperation, and a greater possibility of regional stability—are also almost certainly correct that the concomitant pooling of resources could finance the development and nurturing of national, or even regional, industrial and productive capital. However, the role of the global financial architecture has been constructed precisely to preclude the development of such indigenous refining, and value generating, capacities.

As cynical as this may sound, the so-called “developed world” simply cannot afford, and will not allow, the so-called “developing world” to prosper. This brings us to the looming ecological crisis. The developed world consumes at a rate which would destroy the Earth if universalized. Consequently, the Global North prevents others from developing—in order to curtail consumption in the underdeveloped world—to create an artificial surplus of resources for its own use.

The consumption patterns of the Global North rely on cheap and unfettered access to the resources of the Global South.

Put differently, the developed countries, who like to present themselves as the “international community,” are in fact nothing more than plunderers. Their greatest trick is to make this invisible to others, and instead present the under-developed states as responsible for their own predicament. This is where the “development industry” comes into play, but to understand its true role, we must take a short historical (de)tour. The history of development has been played out in three acts: the colonial era; the era of decolonization and development; and the present neo-colonial era.

Colonialism and (Active) Underdevelopment

Colonialism shaped not only PIL, but the international order: economic, political, cultural, civilizational, developmental, and racial. In the colonial era, the European states unapologetically plundered the resources of their colonies. The colonial powers, in British Governor General of Nigeria Lord      Frederick Lugard’s words, accepted both “moral obligations to the subject races” and “material obligations” so as to “to ensure the development of natural resources for the mutual benefit of the people and of mankind in general”.

The history of European development starts with the Spanish “discovery” of the Americas and the subsequent pillaging of those continents. From 1503 to 1800, almost 100 million kilograms of silver were looted, along with gold, sugar, and so many other resources. This had transformational effects in Europe, financing both the industrial revolution and other colonial projects and conquests. For context, the plundered silver alone would be worth “$165 trillion today, more than double the world’s total GDP in 2015,” according to anthropologist Jason Hickel. Britain alone would plunder another $45 trillion from India, as well as decimate the indigenous American population and the Indian and Chinese economies.

States are not naturally underdeveloped; they are actively de-developed; i.e. crippled. Prior to British colonialism, India and China accounted for 62 percent of global trade (GDP as we would call it today).

After a century or so of active underdevelopment, their combined share of global GDP fell to 10 percent. This was not accidental: India and China were de-developed in order to finance British and subsequent European industrial development. Contemporaneously, the European share of Global GDP rose to 60 percent by 1916. Similar, though less spectacular, processes of underdevelopment continue to structure and facilitate the contemporary global order. Wealth (overdevelopment) is the concentration of resources; poverty (underdevelopment) is the absence of resources. As Susan Marks explains, the conditions which create extreme poverty “benefit some groups of people, even as they massively disadvantage others”. Poverty is a by-product of the creation of wealth: overdevelopment entails underdevelopment.

 A Post-Colonial Order

The colonial world order was created and maintained through violence and plunder; this violence still shapes the world today, but now, greater efforts are made to hide (rather than justify) this plunder. Development forms part of that façade. A discrete discourse of development was cultivated in the 1910s to “solve” the “problem of non-European claims” to rights, land, and resources, by ensuring that those “claims were deferred into the future … because [the non-Europeans] were in need of ‘development’,” writes Timothy Mitchell in his book Carbon Democracy.

Mitchell explains that development’s role in relation with the non-West “would be to manage the difference between extraordinary levels of affluence for some and modest levels of living for the vast majority of the world, rather than to offer effective means of addressing those differences”. Development discourse strives to hide the roots and causes of both underdevelopment and overdevelopment: poverty and wealth. This forced inequality rarely fooled the colonized peoples, however.

The wars of national liberation which drove the decolonization era facilitated a (briefly successful) developmentalist experiment. Here, the former colonies mimicked the domestic economic policies of their colonizers: state-led development, nationalizing key resources and industries, industrialization under protectionism, import substitution, and tight controls on foreign capital flows. And these policies worked for a while. As Hickel demonstrates, income and wealth gaps between the developed and undeveloped states fell for the first, and only, time in modern history. Luis Eslava states that the South experienced during this period from roughly 1960 to 1980, “the fastest economic and productivity growth rates in history.”

But development for the South runs counter to the interests of the North, whose states and corporations rely on cheap labor and resources from their former colonies. The South’s growing political power was starting to erode      the foundations of the world economic system that Europe and the United States had come to rely on. It could not go unchallenged. The imperial powers responded, forming the G7 in 1975, in order “to counter the rise of developmentalism… and to prevent global South countries from working together to increase the prices of raw materials,” writes Hickel.

Europe and America had become addicted to these materials, and would not give up that system. As such, they did all that they could to undermine developmentalism. A new strategy to reassert control over their former colonies was gifted to them by the debt crisis of the early 1980s. The Global North leveraged this crisis to shift the locus of global decision-making to the IMF, the World Bank, and ultimately the WTO—all institutions in which the G7 nations continue to dominate.

“They did this by repurposing the International Monetary Fund… to act as a global debt enforcer,” according to Hickel. The IMF, and then the World Bank, refinanced the loans the underdeveloped states took out during the developmentalist hiatus, but they did so conditionally, forcing these states into not only debt peonage, but also to be beholden to the economically incompetent demands of the infamous structural adjustment programs (SAPs), otherwise known as IMF loan conditionalities.

Our Neo-colonial Present

“In the early 1980s, the G7’s goal was to use the World Bank and the IMF to cripple the South’s economic revolution and re-establish Western access to its resources and markets. On this point, they certainly didn’t fail,” notes Hickel.

Neo-colonialism was an ingenious strategy, masking the resumption of imperial control behind a façade of consent.

SAPs make national decisions appear voluntary, yet function to transfer “de facto control over economic policy in developing countries… to technocrats in Washington, and bankers in New York and London.” This government by remote control is never in the interests of those governed, and has done extensive damage to the      lives of people in affected countries and their well-being.

The WTO completes the unholy trinity of the contemporary global economic order. Joining the WTO is technically optional, but in fact obligatory for economies SAPped into a total dependency on exports and foreign investment (the so-called “integration into the global market”). The WTO entrenches and expands the SAP policies, which have destroyed so many economies and lives. SAPs become self-sustaining, destroying the economies of “developing states”, and rendering them totally dependent on foreign investment and loans to be repaid through export earnings from unprocessed resources and underpriced labor.

This has culminated in the imposition of a “development policy” structured by the twin imperatives of attracting direct foreign investment and expanding the export sector. The imposed reforms take on a predictable pattern: import tariffs and measures to protect local industry are decimated; the economy is opened to foreign investment, generally on preferential terms (low royalty mineral extraction, tax holidays, export-processing zones, and so on); labor standards and minimum wages are curtailed, and national industries are privatized.

Developing countries are deprived of control as well as income. With no scope to develop indigenous refining capacities for export purposes, the developing states are fated to remain raw commodity producers. The development industry remains beholden to the discredited delights of neoliberal economic thinking. It is possible that this reflects a blind ideological commitment, such that forty years of uninterrupted failure proves only that the neoliberal model has not yet been imposed fully enough, and that more of the same medicine will, eventually, cure the disease. It is equally possible, if not more likely, to posit that the neo-liberal model is not failing at all.

Genuine economic development would require developing countries to foster capital-intensive industry. Yet, this can only be done through state investment (like that potentially facilitated by the proposed Eastern Mediterranean Prosperity Zone) and protection from open competition, until they are strong enough to compete successfully. This was the model adopted by the United States and the European states, and more recently by China.

However, this model is denied—in the name of fair competition—to the underdeveloped countries. The international finance institutions and the WTO insist that poor countries liberalize their industries as quickly as possible, claiming this exposure to competition will drive them to develop their most “globally competitive” industries like sweatshops and mines. It is argued that protectionism and government support generate dependency, inefficiency, and laziness. New companies are forced to compete before they are able, or, more often, are simply abandoned on the drawing board.

South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang offers a simple analogy. As parents, we invest in, and protect, our children, allowing them to maximize their human capital. Applying neoliberal logic, we could say that parents merely subsidize their children’s idle existence, protecting them from the fair competition of the market. Consequently, we ought, or indeed are compelled, to withdraw these unfair subsidies, kick our kids out in order to make them become productive, self-reliant, and efficient. But if we drive a child “into the labor market at the age of six,” Chang writes, “he may become a savvy shoeshine boy or even a prosperous hawker, but he will never become a brain surgeon or a nuclear physicist—that would require at least another dozen years of… protection and investment”.

State investment, and protection from market forces, is the only way that poor countries have a shot at becoming anything more than the national equivalent of a shoeshine boy. Consequently, the young industries of poorer countries are sure to collapse in the face of more powerful competition from the North, and will be forced to fall back once again on exporting raw materials or agricultural goods with little value added; certainly not a recipe for development.

It is, however, a recipe for maintaining the neocolonial status quo, hidden behind claims of equality and technocracy. The logic embedded in the heart of PIL is extractivist: to remove resources from the colonized world, and transport them, legally cleansed, to the colonizing states. This requires maintaining the (formerly) colonized states in a position of servitude: as repositories of cheap labor and raw materials.

How the EMGF Comes into Play

Burdened as they are, with old loans and conditionalities, and bound by WTO membership to liberalize their economies, all the countries of the EMGF are not in a position to develop indigenous refinement sectors. Nor under their trade and investment agreements would they be legally entitled to offer any such nascent sector the protection and subsidy needed to survive and prosper.

Because of the imbalance in the systematic enrichment of some through the systematic impoverishment of others, problems arise for the “zone of prosperity” proposed by policymakers excited by the potential of the recent natural gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.

While these newly discovered resources may bring additional revenue streams to several states, PIL is structured to prevent this revenue from being used for either regional economic cooperation or meaningful national development.

It is a mistake to assume that the states involved would have a free hand in deciding how to deploy this resource windfall.

Cyprus, Greece, and Italy will be bound by EU law on state aid and unilateral external relations. The other proposed participants face similar restrictions flowing from their membership in the WTO, and in most cases the structural adjustment conditionalities imposed under their “voluntarily assumed” loans from the IMF or World Bank.

By and large, these conditions will preclude investment in domestic industries, or the type of national protectionism which, history teaches us, is needed so that the peoples of poor nations can survive and flourish. Consequently, the new natural gas discoveries must be evaluated in light of the structural impediments to any proposed regional development plan. Policy prescribers must take more seriously the constraints that PIL imposes on national (and regional) policymakers. Indeed, the whole project must be reconsidered in the context of the international community’s stubborn aversion to development.

Affluent consumer societies have become used to a market supply of natural resources and free access to cheap markets and they will not give those up lightly. As such, genuine development in the South would necessarily undermine the prosperity of the North.

This contradiction is made all the more acute by the ongoing environmental catastrophe driven by global warming. This warming itself is largely fueled by our continued dependency on fossil fuels such as liquid natural gas. One positive outcome of the global shutdown forced by the current COVID-19 pandemic has been a reduction in fossil fuel consumption, which, even in such a brief time, has brought significant positive effects for the environment. However, it remains, at best, extremely unclear whether this reduced consumption of fossil fuels will lead to a lasting shift toward the carbon neutral economy necessary to ensure human survival in the medium term. The unfolding environmental crisis ought to be taken seriously by policy professionals, policymakers, governments, and the leaders of industry. However, it lies beyond the scope of this brief analysis.

A Paralyzing Dilemma

We have a world divided between those who have rights and development and those who do not have rights and development; and we have adhered to this peculiar Catch-22 discourse that says in order to have development you must have human rights, but you cannot expect to have human rights if you are not already developed. What is required instead is intervention, tutelage: the technocratic correction provided by the international finance institutions. Once again, those who have must intervene on those who have not. Human rights law, and “law and development”, are simply the latest iteration of the colonial divide.

The struggle of the developing world to alter the global economic structures which they had, correctly, identified as the cause of their “immiseration and enduring poverty” was defeated in the late 1970s. It is important to emphasize, as Jessica Whyte does in her incisive book ‘The Morals of the Market’, that the international human rights movement played a key role in securing that injustice. Indeed, it could be argued that the movement truly found its identity in the campaign against economic sovereignty for the developing world, as it rallied around its dogmatic insistence that “justice could be achieved by demanding that states comply with human rights”, and so “no need existed to change international economic structures.”

In relation to the EMGF, and certainly another more ambitious regional co-operation plan, the entrenched economic injustice of the PIL will play out as a re-inscription of the civilized/uncivilized divide. Such an imagined plan will be forced to fail (if it can ever start), but Israel and Cyprus will be exonerated, and the failure pinned squarely on their underdeveloped “backward” partners—Egypt, Greece, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority. And, anyway, don’t those states have debts to repay before selfishly lavishing money on their own infrastructures?

Tensions are rising in the Eastern Mediterranean. Natural gas discoveries in the waters off Cyprus, Egypt, and Israel, which should be seen as potential energy and economic wins for each country, have instead heightened and deepened regional antagonisms. Underlying rivalries and new forms of competition have led to a potential realignment of power dynamics among the states of the eastern and southern littoral of the sea, from Turkey to Libya to Israel. It will take leadership and luck to transform these energy discoveries into a new form of cooperation among states in the Eastern Mediterranean, potentially leading to new institutional relationships that could treat and end the chronic sources of instability in the area.

The Eastern Mediterranean gas discoveries since 2009 have had the potential to revitalize economic interactions among the states in the region. However, historical and ongoing frictions between Turkey and Greece and the Republic of Cyprus, primarily due to the 1974 division of Cyprus, have diminished the chances for such a salutary outcome. Turkey’s determined attempts to assert its primacy in both the Mediterranean and Middle East also point to competition between two divergent approaches to the energy finds: one under Turkish direction, and another under a broader consortium of stakeholders.

So far, the Eastern Mediterranean has experienced a series of steps and counter steps, some defensive, others provocative, by the key players. Turkey has asserted claims over Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and has tried to interfere with drilling activities in internationally recognized Cypriot waters. In response, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Greece, Italy, and the Palestinian Authority created the East Mediterranean Gas Forum, or the EMGF, which convened for the first time in early 2019. European and American companies have become partners with the regional states in exploration activities, adding to the isolation of Turkey, which has responded by creating an exclusive economic zone with Libya, an agreement with an uncertain future given the political turmoil there. This agreement is designed to disrupt future gas developments, including a pipeline from the Eastern Mediterranean through Greece to Italy, and could have particularly adverse effects on Greece.

Regional states and their affiliated private enterprises are hardening their bargaining positions with each passing day, and the uncertainties are impacting other countries. Most recently, Saudi Arabia made its preferences clear when, contrary to past policies, it expressed support for the integrity of the Republic of Cyprus. As competition heats up, Russia and other energy producers can also be expected to take a stand.

These developments highlight the need to understand the new and emerging geopolitical landscape and its consequences. Policymakers are now considering how the key states affected by the energy discoveries are jockeying to reconcile their historic political relationships and rivalries with the prospects for transformation through energy economics. Can the regional states find political and security benefits from the finds, as well as the economic value of energy self-sufficiency and new export opportunities? And how will actors from beyond the region shape the prospects for conflict or cooperation?

The Fields

Major new gas discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean Sea began with the Israeli Tamar (2009) and Leviathan (2010) fields off the coast of Israel. Next came Cyprus’ Aphrodite (2011), Egypt’s Zohr (2015), and the again Cypriot Calypso (2018) fields. This was not the first time maritime gas fields had been discovered in the region, but what made these sites transformative was the scale of the finds. The largest is Zohr with thirty trillion cubic feet of gas, followed by Leviathan with twenty-two, Tamar with eleven, Aphrodite with eight, and Calypso with six to eight trillion cubic feet, respectively. While these are not immense fields compared to those of Russia or Qatar, the prospects for more finds in the East Med and the Nile Basin remain quite high. In fact, the Italian oil giant, ENI, in July 2020 discovered another gas field some eleven kilometers from Egypt’s coastline. Each of the discovered fields contained amounts of natural gas that would satisfy their respective nations’ domestic demand; more importantly, together the sites presented new commercial export opportunities. With global energy demand, especially for natural gas, likely rising again after the coronavirus global shock, gas exports promise to bring in valuable foreign exchange earnings to all three countries.

Beyond the immediate material benefits, these discoveries also have other consequences. First and foremost, the Tamar and Leviathan fields offer Israel, which hitherto relied on imports of coal and oil, what it has always sought: a degree of energy security. The fields also help solidify Israel’s relations with both Jordan and Egypt. Gas exports to both countries have commenced and, in turn, have allowed Egypt to double its liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to Europe.

These gas discoveries have the additional benefit of helping Europe mitigate its dependence on Russian gas. The European Commission in 2017 argued that “[t]he Eastern Mediterranean is also a promising source of gas supply for the European Union (EU). This increases the diversification opportunities and reduces import dependency on a single supplier, a key objective of the Energy Union.” The Eastern Mediterranean has also piqued the interest of numerous international oil companies from numerous countries. In addition to local companies, others include Noble and ExxonMobil from the United States, Italian ENI, France’s Total, and Qatar Petroleum.

Competing Options for Exporting the Gas

The three gas-producing countries are looking at two major alternative export routes, each facing serious obstacles given Turkey’s objections. The EastMed pipeline would pool Cyprus and Israel’s gas and export it to Europe across a 1,600-kilometer deep-water pipeline that would traverse first to Crete and then through the rest of Greece, landing in Brindisi on the Italian peninsula. This is an ambitious and expensive option, costing approximately $6-7 billion. Although Egypt is not party to this agreement, the possibility that gas from Egypt’s Zohr field will eventually be part of it is real. Nonetheless, in light of the economic setbacks caused by COVID-19, it is unclear whether the investment goals for 2022 will be achievable.

This project has raised other questions, too; some in Europe have argued that Israel’s exports should be directed to regional countries and not Europe, while others have stressed that the EastMed pipeline represents a serious challenge to the Turkish–Russian pipeline, TurkStream. This newly completed pipeline from Russia through the Black Sea to northwestern Turkey would face competition from the EastMed’s added volume and likely lower price.

An alternative or complementary export route is through the two LNG facilities that Egypt operates. The advantage of tanker-shipped LNG is that it is far more flexible than gas transmitted by pipelines, which are more vulnerable to breakdown, political disputes, or even sabotage. If market conditions change, LNG deliveries can be redirected to other markets relatively quickly, thus averting the large investments an undersea pipeline would entail.

But both of these routes face a new challenge: the 2019 Turkey–Libyan maritime agreement with the government in Tripoli. By claiming an EEZ, the Turks and Libyans can effectively split the Mediterranean into two maritime zones with the explicit Turkish intention of preventing the construction of the EastMed pipeline and also the transit of LNG tankers.

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea gave rise to the concept of EEZs. Of the Eastern Mediterranean players, Turkey and Israel remain outside the convention, while Greece and Cyprus completed the ratification process in the mid-1990s. The EEZ provides coastal states up to a two hundred-mile zone where they enjoy sovereign right to exploit the energy and fishery resources and manage scientific research designed to improve their use as well as develop wind or wave-based energy. Otherwise, all other states have the right to innocent passage or to lay down cables or pipelines.

The convention envisages that states will negotiate mutually accepted limits where their respective EEZs overlap. The government of Cyprus has concluded three EEZ agreements with Egypt (2003), Lebanon (2007), and Israel (2010). Turkey’s position is particularly problematic. It is not a signatory to the agreement, yet interprets its self-declared EEZ as including the islands near its mainland, including Cyprus. It has also declared that it will issue permits for hydrocarbon exploration in what are Greek and Cypriot EEZs. It is thus at odds with the mainstream views and practices of the international community.

The 2019 Turkish–Libyan deal delineating the boundaries between the two countries took all in the region by surprise. The agreement with Turkey was signed by the Tripoli-based, UN-recognized Libyan government, the Government of National Accord (GNA), that is embroiled in a civil war. Turkey, Qatar, and Italy are supporting the Tripoli government while the UAE, Russia, Egypt, and France have supported the rival side, the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by General Khalifa Haftar, and its civilian face, the Tobruk-based House of Representatives.

The Turkish–Libyan agreement represents another salvo by Ankara to impose its will in the Eastern Mediterranean. These actions are seen as part of a wider “Blue Homeland Doctrine,” a naval strategy developed by nationalist Turkish officers designed to assert Turkish dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. To this end, Ankara has been investing significant resources into expanding its naval forces.

The European Union has been critical of the Turkish–Libyan agreement; Italy, despite its opposition to the Haftar regime in Libya, has found it imperative to sign a maritime demarcation agreement with Greece in response to this deal. Europe has also gone on record supporting the construction of an undersea electricity cable link, the EuroAsia Interconnector, between Israel, Cyprus, and Greece, which will then connect to the European electricity grid. The electricity is to be generated from the Cypriot and Israeli gas finds.

The Politics of Discovery

The gas discoveries have accentuated existing geopolitical divisions in the region. At the center of these lies Turkey, which, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime, has become far more assertive, uncompromising, and oftentimes belligerent in its approach to allies and neighbors. Turkey has insisted that Cyprus ought not develop its field until such time as the division of the island is resolved. Turkey has claimed that some of the discoveries have violated its own continental shelf and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)’s rights.

In 2018, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu condemned the 2013 Egypt–Cyprus demarcation agreement on delineating their respective EEZs, arguing that it conflicted with Turkey’s continental shelf. Ankara’s maximalist claims challenge EU-member Cyprus’ rights to its own EEZ; Ankara has even published maps that show the TRNC with an EEZ designation that is larger than that of the rest of Cyprus. The TRNC, created following the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, does not enjoy international recognition; the Republic of Cyprus, by contrast, represents the whole of the island in the eyes of the international community.

Turkey’s legal and rhetorical postures have been accompanied by demonstrations of military power. The Turkish Navy has three times flexed its muscles and taken aggressive steps against civilian ships working in the Cypriot EEZ. It challenged a Norwegian vessel searching for hydrocarbons (2014), an Italian drilling ship (2018), and an Israeli oceanographic research ship (2019), forcing them to cease activities and move out of contested maritime areas.

Turkey also claimed that its navy had prevented a Greek frigate from harassing one of its seismic vessels, a charge that the Greeks denied. In March 2019, Turkey also conducted large naval exercises simultaneously in the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea, and the Mediterranean. In addition, Ankara has deployed two drilling ships to search for gas in waters to the west and southwest of Cyprus.

Turkey has thus used hard power and coercive diplomacy to prevent the full development of the Eastern Mediterranean fields. Its attempts to assert primacy or at least a veto over the plans of its smaller neighbors reflect the volatile and uncertain political environment. It is useful to consider the larger context of this complicated web of bilateral relationships.

Turkey–Egypt

Turkey had hoped that the Arab Spring would bring about a new era in Turkish relations with newly opened Arab states. Yet, Erdoğan and his foreign ministry were left deeply disappointed by the final outcome of the upheavals. Nowhere was this disappointment felt more acutely than with Egypt, where the short-lived solidarity between Ankara and a Muslim Brotherhood-led government in 2012–2013 was quashed by the Egyptian military’s ousting of President Mohamed Morsi and the establishment of the current government of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in 2014. Erdoğan has been harsh in his disdain for Sisi, going so far as to say, “I will never talk to someone like him.” This tension has exposed a new regional fault line, with the Gulf Arab states enthusiastically supporting Egypt.

Egyptian leaders, for their part, have been worried about Turkey’s construction of naval bases in the Red Sea, which could embolden Sudan to revive its territorial dispute with Egypt, specifically over the disputed Halayeb Triangle. Micha’el Tanchum compares Turkey’s build-up of bases in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to China’s “String of Pearls.”

The desire to expand Turkey’s naval presence throughout the region corresponds with the Blue Homeland Doctrine mentioned earlier. In fact, from early on in Erdoğan’s rule, his party, the Justice and Development Party or AKP, initiated a $3 billion “National Warship” program. Erdoğan at the commissioning ceremony of the first such vessel declared his naval ambitions by stating that Turkey’s national interests are “residing in the Suez Canal, the adjacent seas, and from there extending to the Indian Ocean”. Such statements over the years have not been reassuring to Cairo.

Turkey–Israel

After the rise to power of Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party, both Turkey and Israel worked to maintain an element of the strategic cooperation that had marked the relations between the two during the 1990s. The carefully calibrated Turkish–Israeli relationship took a sharply negative turn in 2010 when the Mavi Marmara—a ship chartered by a hardline Turkish Islamic charity bringing relief supplies to besieged Gaza—was boarded by Israeli troops. The incident resulted in the death of ten Turkish nationals, and it took some six years for the two countries to try resuming normal ties. Erdoğan’s championing of the Palestinian issue, his bid for leadership of the Islamic world, and the interplay between these and domestic politics was perhaps the most important influence on the relationship. Therefore, no amount of compensation or regrets by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would prevent the hardening of Turkish attitudes toward Israel, nor restore Israel’s confidence that Turkey could be a reliable partner. Turkey pulled out its ambassador from Israel in 2018, paradoxically not for anything for which it could blame Israel, but simply because U.S. President Donald Trump decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Despite mistrust and a ten-year-long political divide, Israeli–Turkish trade relations have remained steady and even improved. Trade volume increased from $3.4 billion in 2008 to $5.6 billion in 2019. The declining trend in Israeli tourists going to Turkey has, starting in 2019, been reversed. Paradoxically, this uptick in tourism has occurred in tandem with Israel Defense Forces (IDF)—for the first time—stating that the IDF now has, “included the aggressive regional policies of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a top danger to watch.”

Turkey–Libya

The Turkish–Libyan maritime agreement has brought additional focus on Libya, which has traditionally been an important oil producer.  Libya’s oil infrastructure fell on hard times at the end of the Muammar Gaddafi era and has worsened with the advent of the civil war. In spring 2020, Turkey decided to massively augment its involvement in Libya and helped the GNA deal Haftar and his LNA forces a humiliating defeat. Turkish drones and the Syrian mercenaries it brought into Libya halted and pushed back the LNA’s advance on Tripoli, capturing significant territory and arms depots in the process. Turkey has now established itself as one the major players in the Libyan war. In fact, in July 2020, it was Turkey, not the GNA, that threatened new hostilities unless Haftar’s forces voluntarily relinquished critical positions, including the strategic town of Sirte. One unintended consequence of the Turkey–Libya agreement was to strengthen the resolve of Haftar’s allies such as Egypt. It was, therefore, not surprising that Greece hosted Haftar in January 2020 and promised to block any agreement in the EU on Libya unless the Turkish–Libyan deal was scrapped.

Israel–Greece–Cyprus

In light of the tensions in the Ankara–Tel-Aviv economic and security partnership, Israel’s foreign policy has gradually moved to closer ties with Greece and Cyprus. The energy finds greatly validated and revitalized those relationships, and the creation of the EMGF signals a deeper political commitment by the parties to work together. Israel may not necessarily view its relationship with Turkey as a zero-sum one, but at present it has deepened ties with Cyprus and Greece at Ankara’s expense.

Israel–Egypt

Cooperation over the natural gas discoveries is a boon to Israeli–Egyptian relations. After a long cold peace, during which the 1981 treaty relationship was observed by the letter but not always in spirit, more recent governments in Cairo and Tel Aviv have found pragmatic ways to cooperate, over security issues in Gaza and the Sinai, and now over shared economic interests. Israel is already exporting gas to Egypt. Israel also sees opportunities to improve its economic relationship with Jordan, and possibly Lebanon, through the gas pipeline business. It builds on long-held beliefs that economic interactions can build greater trust and good will among parties, even when the Palestine question is far from resolution and many disagreements in Israel–Arab relations persist.

The Larger Geopolitical Picture

At the present time, events regarding the new energy resources of the Eastern Mediterranean are moving in favor of the Israel–Greece–Cyprus–Egypt coalition. As of mid-2020, Turkey is the outlier, attempting to limit if not undermine any new multilateral regional institution if such an organization’s structure does not conform with its assertions of its rights on the continental shelf. This has created an environment of uncertainty and tension about the Eastern Mediterranean, rather than the much-touted opportunity for energy interests to be drivers of regional peace and conflict resolution.

The establishment of the EMGF, nonetheless, is a major achievement. While the new multilateral organization is still in its nascent stages, it has galvanized some positive political spirit among its initial members. It was launched in Athens, its headquarters will be in Cairo, and Israel is set to provide a major leadership role in its capacity as the source of much of the gas.

Turkey has not found a way to reconcile itself to this new situation. Instead, the Turkish state continues to promote controversial interpretations of international norms and laws in self-serving ways. Turkey has refused to recognize islands’ rights to their own continental shelf or other agreements signed by sovereign nations, such as the one between Egypt and Cyprus. At the same time, the Erdoğan administration insists that its recent agreement with Libya is valid and legally binding.

Key international players, including the EU and the United States, have declared their support for the EMGF and its projects. There has also been pushback against Turkey’s maritime assertions. Early in 2020, France dispatched war frigates to the Eastern Mediterranean in support of Greece against Turkey. The European Union unanimously agreed to impose sanctions on Turkey for its drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean.

 The repercussions of this new energy picture could well reshape the geopolitical landscape in the near term. The new partnership includes NATO member Greece, EU members Greece and Cyprus, and treaty partners Israel and Egypt. It bridges well-established institutional channels to create a new cross-regional structure that deepens commercial and political ties among its founding members. Yet, whether it proves to be a driver toward a more peaceful region or another source of instability will depend on a number of factors.

Moving away from zero-sum thinking and the legacies of mistrust

Turkey today is the pivotal player in the region. With Turkey currently playing a spoiler role, is it possible to find common ground between Turkey’s important position as an energy transit state to Europe and the new EMGF? Turkey’s tendency to see the situation in black and white terms has not permitted a constructive negotiation to see if its interests can be reconciled with those of its neighbors and rivals.

The Anatolian state has long been a bridge country, linked to the Arab World by old imperial political legacies and by modern economic interdependencies. Under Erdoğan and his ambitious foreign policy, some see a neo-Ottoman desire to reassert leadership, but he has discovered that not all countries that have a robust economic relationship with Ankara will bend to his will. Erdoğan has found himself competing with increasingly confident Gulf Arab states willing to provide a counterbalance to Turkish ambitions.

The Gulf Arabs are also asserting themselves as more ambitious players, building some concentric circles of influence beyond their borders, from their roles in the Yemeni and Syrian civil wars, to the Horn of Africa, and to Libya. They may be investors in the new energy opportunities in the Eastern Mediterranean, but they are second-tier players, not drivers of the new situation. Israel, on the other hand, plays a central role as the key beneficiary of energy discoveries with its advanced economy, sophisticated industrial capacity, and political ambition to expand its partnerships in the wider region. When the discoveries were new, Israel thought there was the potential to transform regional relations. Israel envisioned pipelines feeding an LNG plant in Cyprus continuing on to Turkey. From there, Israeli gas would end up in the Europe-bound Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline or the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, both then in their planning stages.

Israel may have also hoped to contribute to greater regional stability, should the economic shared interest nudge the parties on Cyprus to restart their negotiations. Given the emerging Turkish objections to Nicosia’s right to exploit the Aphrodite and Calypso fields, such an aspiration does not seem achievable at present. Nevertheless, Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz has been publicly open to future Turkish cooperation: “If Turkey would be interested, the door is open,” he told Reuters earlier this year.

 Israelis, as Burcu Özçelik argues, have more often than not exercised a great deal of pragmatism. In this respect, the timing of the energy finds is fortuitous. Israel has enjoyed an incremental improvement in its ties to major Arab states in the past two decades and has long seen benefit in stable relations with Turkey, based on shared security interests related to terrorism and extremism and mutually beneficial trade and economic relations. The ball is in the Turkish court. Should Ankara’s current confrontational nationalistic policies, ranging from Syria to Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean, and more recently, over the Hagia Sophia becoming a mosque, backfire and negatively affect its economic and political fortunes, the Erdoğan administration may conclude that a shift in its relations with Israel would be one way to alter these dynamics.

The current COVID-19 worldwide crisis may, as Gabriel Mitchell argues, prove to be a turning point as it could compel the would-be gas exporters to recalibrate their goals so as to focus on more manageable domestic and regional objectives. The recession-driven declining demand for gas in general and the $7 billion price tag for the pipeline have together undercut much of the impetus forward. Turkey will for the considerable future be suffering from the effects of the pandemic and, therefore, may have to alter its approach to the region.

The EMGF becoming a more effective institution than others in the region

It has long been said that the Middle East lacks strong regional institutions. The Arab League’s stature in setting the regional agenda or defining common interests in the Arab World has diminished, and the current rift among Gulf states that has spilled over to the civil wars in Syria and Libya has weakened the Arab League further. The Gulf Cooperation Council, once expected to evolve into deeper integration of the Gulf states, has faltered over the rift between Qatar and its neighbors. More recently, different configurations of temporary alliances have become the norm, rather than the formal, consensus-based positions of the past. As Barcelona scholar Eduard Soler has described it, the Syrian war has demonstrated a new form of cooperation he calls liquid alliances, temporary and contingent forms of collaboration among regional states.

In theory, the new EMGF promises to be more than a liquid alliance. Its strength will reside in its core mission to manage a commercial network that represents significant economic gains for all members. It remains to be seen if the EMGF will develop smart ways of doing business and not become overly formal and bureaucratic. The hope is that the states and the private sector corporate stakeholders will demand that the forum be a modern, agile, technologically advanced organization that serves the interests of its members.

How chronic Middle East fault lines affect the prospects for success

The political divide between Turkey and Egypt reflects the deep and existential issue of the role of Islam in modern Middle Eastern politics. Egypt has taken measures to pressure and curb the proliferation of political Islam. They have taken a firm stand, perhaps from the hard knocks of September 11, 2001 and the Arab Spring, against the Muslim Brotherhood and any organized Islamic movements that challenge the governance and power structures of incumbent regimes. In this view, while the Muslim Brothers may have eschewed violence in pursuit of their political objectives, any political group invoking Islam is on a dangerous path that could lead to extremism.

Turkey is on the other side of this divide. While Erdoğan may adhere to the secular tenets of the Turkish constitution, his Justice and Development Party is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, and as such, is anathema to Egypt and the powerful Gulf states that now promote a clear separation between the functions of a modern state and the private religious lives of citizens. This present geopolitical reality is deeply ironic. For much of the twentieth century, Turkey was a militantly secular state while Saudi Arabia was created out of an alliance between the Wahabi religious establishment and the Al-Saud tribal dynasty. Now the tables have turned, and the roles reversed.

 Moving Ahead with the EMGF?

The likelihood that the EMGF will usher in an enduring transformation of regional politics is low, but still worth considering. A pragmatic, mutually beneficial network of public and private interests should build political good will that could be channeled into larger gains over time. An ongoing collaboration between two or more EU members and Israel and Egypt helps reconceptualize the Eastern Mediterranean. Such an approach will make geographic and economic interests more important than the frozen political alignments of the past. In a best-case scenario, a successful EMGF could create momentum for resolving the division of Cyprus, for normalizing Israel–Palestine economic relations as a precondition for political accommodation, and for overcoming the split between Turkey and key Arab Sunni states over regional hotspots in Syria and Libya in particular. Each of these steps would be a remarkable achievement.

 The more likely near-term outcome is continued but manageable tensions without outright conflict between Turkey and the EMGF states. The gas developments are moving forward, and more states may join the forum. This near-term outcome is more likely if a global economic recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic arrests or slows down the EMGF’s investment goals, but the underlying logic of the forum is likely to propel the project forward, perhaps on a slower timetable. Turkey may continue to put roadblocks in the way, but may not be able to overcome this multilateral enterprise. Ankara will need to weigh the cumulative costs of being the outlier in the emerging political economy of the region.

A worst-case scenario relates to a further hardening of the Turkish position, and an escalation of its coercive moves to block the development of new pipelines. Turkey’s proud and stubborn leader could find himself cornered, trapped by his own rhetoric. A case in point is the declared Turkish intention of drilling in waters next to Crete and Rhodes, which Ankara claims is its right in the context of its deal with Libya. Conflicts can be triggered by such miscalculations or unwillingness to find compromises.

Today, armed conflict between Turkey and its neighbors in the Eastern Mediterranean seems a remote possibility, but it cannot be ruled out. Accidents, especially at sea, do occur. Yet, this possibility provides Greece, Cyprus, Israel, and Egypt with all the more reason to work with Turkey, if possible, and spread the EMGF’s relationships to Europe and beyond.

Lisa Anderson, 70, President of the American University in Cairo (AUC) from 2011–2016 and its Provost in the three years preceding, is an expert on Libyan affairs and bilateral education in the United States and the Middle East. She has authored Pursuing Truth, Exercising Power: Social Science and Public Policy in the Twenty-first Century in 2003 and The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya, 1820-1980 in 1986.

Now, Anderson is Dean Emerita at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, where she served as dean for a decade before coming to AUC. In that time, she also chaired Columbia’s political science department and directed its Middle East Institute.

Utilizing her expertise in Libya, both past and present, Anderson discusses how power struggles in the country play out on the geopolitical chessboard.

Cairo Review Assistant Editor Sydney Wise spoke with Dr. Anderson in February of 2020.

Sydney Wise: What spillover effects from Libya are felt by the Mediterranean region?

Dr. Lisa Anderson: I think the difficulty is that everybody treats Libya as a problem for other people; it would be useful for us all to think, at some point, of everybody else being a problem for Libya. Right now, what Libya represents is an arena: a playing field for people to work out problems that aren’t really Libyan problems. For example, the Italians—and the European Union as a whole—think of Libya pretty much only as a source of oil and illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. They don’t think very much about what is going on within the country as long as they can ensure continued access to oil and some way of preventing migrants from getting into the Mediterranean.

These are the main European priorities. The European states are willing to pay a fair amount of money to Libyan militias to prevent migration—there’s a little bit of a protection racket going on there. The Europeans are very much aware of what they’re doing, and they think, at this point, that it’s the only way to stem migration.

The Turks are really more concerned about exercising influence in this world of residual Islamist movements, Muslim Brotherhood or otherwise. But, they also have a longstanding interest in Libya because it was one of the last Ottoman provinces that was ruled directly and relatively successfully at the end of the empire. Even under Muammar Gaddafi, Turkey and Libya had important commercial relations. Some parts of the country, like Misrata, had particularly large amounts of trade. So, they see this both in ideological terms and in commercial terms.

Beyond that, the Gulf countries are particularly involved in Libya right now, and further afield, so is Russia. For these countries, Libya is once again a sort of arena in which they can play out conflicts that they have among themselves. The Emiratis are supporting the groups within Libya that are opposed to groups supported by the Qataris and allied with the Turks. So, there are a lot of regional geopolitics being played out here that have virtually nothing to do with domestic Libyan politics.

Sydney Wise: Your points here remind me of a piece that was published in the Cairo Review’s last issue on nuclearization. It was written by Karim Al-Baz, and he used the term “Lebanization,” which basically describes external states taking advantage of conflicts by backing whatever party most closely aligns with their views. So, we see this in Libya as well.

Dr. Lisa Anderson: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I wouldn’t describe it as completely comparable to Lebanon, because Lebanon has been Lebanon for a lot longer, if you will. But this sense that external actors are using local actors as proxies for wars that are not about the local issues is quite clear. Yes.

Sydney Wise: And among these external actors, do we see any blocs of aligned response, like within Europe, for instance?

Dr. Lisa Anderson: Well, it’s interesting, because I think the Europeans are somewhat divided; and again, I think that divide is about European politics. France seems to be more sympathetic to Haftar and the Russian-Emirati axis, if you will, than some of the other European countries. That’s because [French President Emmanuel] Macron would like to have what I suppose he thinks would be an “easy win” in being able to get everybody to the table for peace talks. That clearly didn’t work—or at least it hasn’t worked yet.

By contrast, the Italians are just much more concerned about making sure that nobody gets into boats that end up landing in Italy. So, I think the Europeans are, in a sense, as divided as everyone else. Libya has always seemed to outsiders as a place that couldn’t be that complicated. People say “Why can’t we just go in and fix everything? And if we do, we’ll be powerful, we’ll be influential in the Mediterranean, we’ll be seen, we’ll seem to be effective actors on the world stage,” and so forth. They don’t realize that, in fact, it’s a very complicated country and that there are a lot of other players who are also aspiring to the same global visibility. And so, people have been defeated by that, repeatedly.

Sydney Wise: What effect do you think these blocs of response have had on attempts to have negotiations towards peace, whether they’re sponsored by states or international organizations?

Dr. Lisa Anderson: At this point, I don’t think anyone could plausibly make the case that external interference has been productive. I think that until the countries that are supplying arms and money to the actors on the ground actually decide that they themselves have tired of this, and for whatever reasons don’t want to pursue it anymore, there will be a limitless appetite for continuing a low-level conflict. Because even if a peace agreement is relatively equitable, somebody is going to end up losing something.

External actors are going to lose the prospect of being able to win everything. They are going to lose money once the war economy ends. A lot of people, both within and around Libya, are making a lot of money out of this conflict, and a lot of people are using it as a vehicle to needle and undermine their opponents elsewhere in the world. There’s not an appetite at this point on the part of any of the supporters of any of the factions for peace talks that are serious. So, I don’t think it’s going to happen. I’ve long believed that if, suddenly, somehow the borders of Libya were actually closed and nobody could import any weapons, money, mercenaries, or other kinds of support, then the Libyans themselves would come to terms with peace relatively quickly. But, there’s no incentive to do that.

Sydney Wise: We’ve talked a little bit about Europe, but what amount of influence do the United States and Russia exercise in all of this?

Dr Lisa Anderson: The United States, actually exercises very, very little, and deliberately so. I think that under Obama, after the U.S. ambassador was killed in Benghazi, the United States really wanted to keep their distance. So, for a long time, they just backed the United Nations—they just didn’t want to be involved. The Trump administration has essentially taken the same stance of simply not thinking it’s important enough to get involved.

I think that Trump has conveyed some sympathy for Haftar, mostly because the Emiratis and the Egyptians would like him to; they would like the United States on their side in the conflict. But, I don’t think the United States has put much energy or resources into this. By contrast, the Russians have seen an opportunity to become involved, in part because the United States is not particularly so. But I think they, too, would be happy to get everybody in Moscow around a table and come up with a peace agreement if that were easy. Although that would be a way of needling the United States, the Russians do have their hands full; Libya isn’t that important to them, and I don’t think that they’re going to be willing to put in the resources to ensure either that someone wins or that there are actually serious peace talks. Regardless, once again, Russia’s motivations are not about Libya. Very few players actually care about Libya.

Sydney Wise: In January of 2020, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that Libya could become “a second Syria.” What do you think she meant by that, and was she right?

Dr. Lisa Anderson: I think she meant that Libya and Syria are both sources of refugees, sort of impossible problems to solve, and opportunities for Russia to take advantage of the European failure to organize themselves enough to have any impact, positive or negative, on the conflict. So, she thinks—and I think—that the Libyan conflict will continue, with some justification.  I also think that, again, Europeans refer to Syria because they are most concerned that there is no permanent solution to the refugee problem, and that the refugees are either going to come to Europe or end up being very expensive to support wherever they are.

Sydney Wise: Do you see states’ responses syncing along the lines of these existing regional dynamics, like refugee flow?

Dr. Lisa Anderson: I don’t think most of the countries around Libya care; the concern about refugees is really a European concern. Particularly, it is because Libya is a transit for sub-Saharan and economic refugees and migrants.

I don’t think that the regional countries, particularly the border countries, are especially concerned about that. Historically, the flow of migrants has actually been in the other direction; Tunisians and Egyptians have gone to Libya to work in the construction or oil sectors. There’s a lot of back and forth; there are also Libyans living in Tunisia and Egypt. I don’t think that they are likely to experience refugee flows the likes of what you see in Jordan from Syria. Libya doesn’t have that kind of population in the first place, and most of the Libyans who are outside the country have been outside for some time.

Sydney Wise: How do institutions in Europe and in North Africa respond—for example, the European Union versus the African Union or the Arab League?

Dr. Lisa Anderson: I hate to say this, but I think the Arab League is completely broken and has no response at this point to these kinds of problems—and I think that they would acknowledge that. The Arab League is reflecting the challenges of deep divisions within the Arab world about a variety of policy issues separate from Libya. In light of this, I don’t think that they’ve been able to have any effect in Libya at all. The African Union, similarly, doesn’t have a great deal of influence in Libya or on the political developments in the country.

The European Union, again, is trying to ensure that refugee flows do not resume, while ensuring that oil flows do resume and continue. Additionally, once in a while, there’s some intra-European competition over influence in general, in which Libya sometimes plays a role; but they can compete over lots of other things, so Libya isn’t pivotal to them. In the world in general right now, this is not a good moment for international institutions. Even the United Nations (UN), which is probably the most important international institution involved in Libya, is really struggling to direct any of the efforts at peace talks or ceasefires.

They simply cannot; not only will the Libyan parties in the conflict be disinclined to listen to them, but the whole rest of the world is listening. If the Russians and the French both want to host peace talks and neither are telling the UN special representative that they’re doing so beforehand, it’s hard for the UN to play a genuinely constructive role—although I think it is the strongest, most knowledgeable, and best intentioned of any of the players outside of Libya.

Sydney Wise: So, I think we’ve come to the conclusion that peace negotiations as they stand right now are not effective in resolving the conflict. What needs to change?

Dr. Lisa Anderson: I think most of the outside actors just have to say, “we’re not going to do this anymore”, whether they decide that it isn’t constructive for them or they are just exhausted. For many of them, Libya’s pretty far away, pretty small; it’s not a big threat to them and not a big issue for them. Until the conflict itself becomes counterproductive for them, I just don’t see how it’s going to end. So, what one hopes is that the countries who are using Libya as an arena for external conflicts decide that they will address those issues directly, and leave Libya alone to resolve its domestic affairs.

I don’t think that will be easy, but I think it will ultimately be a lot easier than remaining involved indefinitely.

Since the early 2000s, exploration and discovery of natural gas in the offshore fields of several Eastern Mediterranean countries has contributed to the already complex geopolitics of the region. Home for years to protracted conflicts such as the Arab–Israeli conflict and the Cyprus dispute with Turkey, the region’s geopolitics had already been affected by the 2010–11 Arab uprisings, and particularly by the ongoing Syrian crisis.

It had initially been hoped that the newly discovered hydrocarbon resources and their transportation would foster cooperation among states, but instead they further aggravated the insecurity in the region. Zero-sum geopolitics eventually led to the creation of two poles: Greece, Greek Cypriots, Israel, and Egypt at one end, and Turkey on the other. The level of regional power competition has been augmented by the involvement of the extra-regional powers, mainly the United States and Russia. While Moscow has consolidated its presence in the region through its position in Syria as well as its relations with several riparian states, Washington, the traditional external power in the region, has engaged in an effort to limit Russia’s influence. As a result, the Eastern Mediterranean has become a highly militarized region.

The emergence of Eastern Mediterranean energy politics has spurred Turkey’s further involvement and its recent move to sign a maritime delimitation agreement with Libya to circumvent the other countries. It is important then to explore the motivations behind Turkey’s Eastern Mediterranean policy and the possibilities and limitations of managing geopolitical and geoeconomic competition in the region.

Turkey’s Energy Politics: From Careful Support to Rebuff
Historically, Turkey’s interest in the Eastern Mediterranean was largely limited to the Cyprus problem and its support of the Turkish Cypriots. Thus, when the Greek Cypriots began offshore natural gas explorations around the island and signed maritime delimitation accords with Egypt in 2003 and Lebanon in 2007, Turkey lodged an objection with the UN, citing that the agreements breached Turkey’s and Turkish Cypriots’ rights. These developments were taking place in the first decade of the 2000s while Turkey was undergoing accession negotiations with the European Union, and the UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan’s reunification plan—known as the Annan Plan for Cyprus—was underway. The plan was supported by the Turkish Cypriots and aligned with the Justice and Development (AKP) Party’s “zero problems with neighbors” policy.

In the meantime, Turkey was also involved in pipeline discussions including the Arab Gas Pipeline—which was meant to export Egyptian gas to Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, with branch underwater and overland pipelines to Israel—with the aim of connecting Turkish gas to the EU countries. Eventually, Iraqi gas was going to link to this pipeline, too. This proposal inspired to create a momentum for interdependence and cooperation between Middle Eastern countries through natural gas as well as provide EU countries an opportunity to diversify their gas supply. Turkey, aspiring to be an energy hub for European markets, satisfy its own growing energy demand, and diversify its energy imports, actively supported this initiative.

Thus, overall in the early 2000s, Eastern Mediterranean natural gas developments remained largely limited and fragmented, and Turkey’s response to the developments was also fragmented. As for Cyprus’s exploration and delimitation agreements, Turkey was wary of these developments and acted reactively in its policy responses rather than take proactive measures to control the situation. In the larger Middle East context, however, natural gas was seen as a commodity that would solidify regional cooperation, a goal and vision that fell in line with Turkey’s Middle East policy at that time and was also supported by the EU.

Eastern Mediterranean natural gas politics, however, began to change from 2010 onwards for two main reasons. First, there was an increase in the exploration and production of natural gas. Discoveries increased in hopes of satisfying domestic demands, which led to a higher projection of imports for the littoral states of the Eastern Mediterranean. The discovery of significant offshore natural gas fields such as Tamar and the Leviathan by Israel in 2009 and 2010 respectively sparked the signing of a maritime delimitation agreement between Israel and the Greek Cypriots in 2010. That year also marked a downturn in Turkish–Israeli relations following the Mavi Marmara incident, in which a Turkish ship that was part of an international flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip was raided by Israeli forces, leaving nine Turkish citizens dead.

Second, the geopolitics of the region began to significantly change after the Arab uprisings. Characterized by increasing instability due to multilevel conflicts, increased regional competition, and external intervention, regional politics came to be characterized by fragmentation, securitization, and zero-sum politics. In this context, Turkey’s relations with the region also began to falter as the AKP government made Turkey part of regional conflicts and competition. Turkey was quick to support the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and adopted a policy of regime change in Syria. In supporting the opposition movements, the AKP government particularly cultivated relations with the Muslim Brotherhood in these countries. These positions increasingly put Turkey in conflict with the regional countries which had perceived the post-Arab uprisings developments as a threat and which had favored the status quo.

In the post-Arab uprisings, therefore, Turkey’s relations with all the Middle East countries other than Qatar started to deteriorate.

Despite mounting tensions, however, in the 2010s there were still two more attempts to utilize natural gas as a source of cooperation in the region, namely the 2014 Cyprus talks and the efforts to normalize Turkish–Israeli relations. In both of these cases, the United States was instrumental.

The Cyprus talks started in February 2014, backed by Greece and Turkey, and with U.S. support and involvement. Gas discoveries in 2012 and 2013 proved to be the main impetus behind the start of the new round of negotiations. It was thought that Cyprus’s offshore gas fields could facilitate a peace deal where all the parties could win. Cyprus could export its gas to Europe via a pipeline through Turkey and Greece, and Israeli gas could be linked to this pipeline as well. After all, the Turkish option was seen as the cheapest, quickest, and most secure way to get this gas to European markets. The prospects for a Cyprus settlement further improved following the victory of Mustafa Akıncı in the North Cyprus presidential elections held in April 2015. However, the talks failed in 2017 ultimately due to the parties’ lack of agreement on domestic issues.

Energy issues were also the focus in efforts to restore diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a telephone conversation brokered by Barack Obama, where he apologized about the Mavi Marmara raid and agreed to pay compensation to the families of those killed. The apology was followed by negotiations between the two countries in 2016–17, which aimed to normalize or restore relations between them. In June 2016, Turkey and Israel signed a reconciliation agreement; cooperation on transportation of natural gas became part of the official negotiations. The Israeli foreign minister visited Turkey, the first official visit since 2010, to meet with then-Turkish Energy Minister Berat Albayrak. The most cost-effective route to transport Israeli gas was via Lebanon and Syria to Turkey, but this was not politically viable. The alternative was to pass through the territorial waters of Cyprus. Although for Turkey the pipeline would pass through the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Turkish Cypriot side, for Israel it would mean muddling in the waters of the Cyprus conflict. In any event, the two sides were also unable to agree on economic terms, and as a result no deal was reached.

As this was happening, the Aphrodite gas field was discovered in December 2011. This further solidified cooperation between Cyprus and Israel. In the context of the exportation of natural gas, Greece also became part of the group as they began to develop the idea of an alternative route, the EastMed pipeline, passing through the Greek island of Crete to mainland Greece, which would exclude Turkey.

The relations between the three countries began to expand beyond natural gas cooperation to include diplomatic and military ties. In Ankara, this development was seen as an effort to isolate Turkey. After all, Turkey did have problematic relations with all three of these countries. The historical maritime boundary dispute between Greece and Turkey in the Aegean Sea and the Cyprus problem were linked to the developments in the Eastern Mediterranean. Through their delimitation claims, Cyprus and Greece have sought to control a significant portion of the Eastern Mediterranean, a premise that was not acceptable to Turkey.

Despite some attempts at normalization, Turkey’s relations with Israel were also shaky and have deteriorated largely as a result of the Ankara’s harsh criticism of Israeli policies.

In addition to the EastMed project, another major recent development in regional energy politics was the establishment of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF). In January 2019, energy ministers from Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority launched the EMGF, which aims to create a regional gas market.

This solidified the links within the EastMed group and especially with Egypt, another important gas producer in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The EMGF seems to be a largely Egyptian initiative as Cairo has ambitions of becoming a regional hub for LNG, which could be a less costly option than the EastMed pipeline, though politically risky. The initiative does not include Lebanon and Turkey; Lebanon does not recognize Israel and has an ongoing maritime boundary dispute with it, while Turkey has problematic relations with most of the EMGF’s members.

Turkey’s Response
All these developments were seen as a threat in Ankara and a violation of Turkey’s and Turkish Cypriot’s sovereign rights and interests. The challenges they posed to Turkey have already been voiced by different actors there, but the AKP government made it an important part of its policy, especially since 2016. The developments in the Eastern Mediterranean were seen not only as an economic matter, but because of the delimitation disputes, they were considered an issue of sovereignty. Thus, the Blue Homeland Strategy—developed by the Turkish military earlier—was adopted to protect Turkish interests which it perceived to be in danger. In that, the government seems to have created domestic political consensus.

This proactive strategy has two elements: first of all, Turkey bought three drilling vessels, to replace the dated Piri Reis, to explore for hydrocarbons in the Eastern Mediterranean. This enabled Turkey to intensify its offshore drilling operations including in disputed zones around the island of Cyprus. In March 2019, Turkey also launched “Blue Homeland 2019,” an extensive naval military exercise that extended across the three seas around Turkey. Turkey’s gunboat diplomacy and President Erdoğan’s declaration that they aim to expand drilling operations in the Mediterranean signaled a possibility of escalation in the region.

Secondly, Turkey signed a maritime delimitation agreement with the Tripoli-based, UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Fayez Al-Sarraj in Libya on November 27, 2019. The agreement, which defined the western maritime delimitation of Turkey, seeks to block the envisaged route of the East-Med pipeline. It also aims to override Greek claims to full maritime rights for its islands, and thus increases not only Turkey’s but also Libya’s continental shelf rights. It also gives more continental shelf rights to Egypt than the agreement Egypt signed in 2003 with Cyprus. This is in line with the argument Turkey has been making for years about the maritime rights of islands constituting “special circumstance” in semi-closed seas like the Mediterranean, where islands may not necessarily have territorial waters based on the median line.

Following the signing of the maritime delimitation agreement, upon the request of the GNA, the Turkish parliament approved the bill allowing the deployment of troops to Libya with 325 votes in favor and 184 against. By signing the maritime delimitation agreement with the Tripoli government, Turkey by and large asserted its commitment to militarily support this government. This has not only redefined the boundaries of the Eastern Mediterranean region but also inserted the regional Middle East competition on the issue of the Libyan conflict into the geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean.

In response, Greece expelled the Libyan ambassador to Athens and invited Khalifa Haftar, the military commander trying to topple the GNA, to the capital to meet with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Similarly, the United Arab Emirates, which has been actively part of the Saudi axis trying to limit Turkey’s influence in the Middle East, has also become involved in the Eastern Mediterranean maritime conflict by supporting the EastMed pipeline. Due to these changes, Eastern Mediterranean geopolitics became linked to Middle Eastern politics and geopolitics, and all these conflicts suddenly became integrated. 

What Kind of Interdependence?
In international relations and its subfield international political economy, one dominant view is that economic interdependence softens conflicts and may create peace and stability. With the emergence of the Eastern Mediterranean as a region of natural gas production, many policymakers believed this could create an atmosphere conducive to the resolution of conflicts and problems in the region. As explained above, there were even specific initiatives to that effect.

Unfortunately, the opposite has happened. Today, Eastern Mediterranean geopolitics have become more complex as we have witnessed the linking of separate conflicts and the mounting of potential escalation. Why has this been the case? Of course, there were always scholars who argued that, unlike the liberal view mentioned above, interdependence may exacerbate security concerns rather than eliminate them.

But even if we go along with this view, there seems to be a caveat that does not exist in the Eastern Mediterranean context: to create more peaceful relations, interdependence has to be inclusive.

In the Eastern Mediterranean context, natural gas has created interdependence between Cyprus, Israel, Greece, and Egypt at the exclusion of another important actor, Turkey. Turkey, on its part, has been a part of protracted conflicts with Cyprus and Greece, and has developed a conflictual relationship with Israel and Egypt. Thus, these states have come together not only because of their common natural gas interests but also because of their desire to contain Turkey, a country with which they all have a tumultuous relationship.

In such a case, energy relations not only fail to reduce conflict between states, but in fact exacerbate existing conflictual relations, especially when some of these conflicts are protracted and unrelated to energy like in the case of the Cyprus conflict and the Aegean dispute.

For Turkey, the crux of these conflicts is also no longer only about energy, but rather the fight over maritime delimitation rights, which is linked to its own sovereignty.

This perspective also further securitizes the natural gas issue. Although the competition with Turkey is the main area of contention in the Eastern Mediterranean issue, there are also other ongoing disputes that show that energy interdependencies do not necessarily resolve issues. For instance, although Lebanon has not been very active on this issue until recently, the location of its offshore natural gas overlaps with Israel’s maritime boundaries. Similarly, Israel and Cyprus have a row over the borders of the Greek–Cypriot Aphrodite offshore gas field which borders the Israeli Yishai gas field, with Israel warning the three energy companies involved not to start work on the gas field until the two countries reach an agreement over ownership of the reserves in the border dispute.

Can there be any incentives to turn these disputes around? In the case of mitigating the dispute between Turkey and the current producers, there could be some economic incentives to do so. The natural gas market has been saturated for some time and prices have been dropping. Now with COVID-19 and the anticipation of a world economic crisis, it is safe to expect that the natural gas market will not recover any time soon. In such an environment, it would be more difficult to build the EastMed pipeline, which was itself already an expensive project that faced funding challenges. This may make the option of running the pipeline through Turkey an economically viable one and thus create economic incentives to include Turkey.

But as it has been argued before, economic incentives alone would not be enough to resolve the Eastern Mediterranean quagmire. Political and geostrategic shifts have to happen in order to create common interests that would allow the parties to normalize their relations. One of these shifts has already occurred: by signing a deal with the GNA and doubling up its support for it, Turkey has already raised the stakes for its non-inclusion, although in a risky and dangerous manner. A more diplomatic move could be for Turkey to normalize relations with Israel and/or Egypt. This could pave the way for Turkey’s inclusion in the natural gas politics in the Eastern Mediterranean. Such a development, however, would require the emergence of common geostrategic interests.

It is difficult to find this in the case of Egypt–Turkey relations as Ankara’s moves in neighboring Libya are seen to be against Egyptian interests. In spite of that, any thaw in bilateral relations would not only help to ease tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean but also help to stabilize Libya. In the case of Israel, however, there may be a convergence of interests in Syria in terms of limiting Iran’s influence in the country. Interestingly, there have been recent references in both Turkish and Israeli media to improving relations between the two countries, especially around energy issues, mainly promoting Turkey as a destination as well as a gateway to Israeli gas. Moreover, the recent decision of Israeli airline El Al to resume cargo flights to Turkey after a ten-year pause was interpreted by many as a sign of changing relations. However, it is very early to tell how things will turn out as the Netanyahu government’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank this summer can easily disrupt any moves toward normalization. For now, the maximalist and zero-sum positions taken by all actors involved are not contributing to the stability of the region and as such constitute a challenge to reaping the benefits of the newly found resources.

“The times when we could completely depend on others are, to a certain extent, over,” opined Angela Merkel at a rally in May 2017.  “We Europeans,” the German chancellor continued, “have to take fate into our own hands.” Her statement, which came on the heels of Donald Trump’s entry onto the world stage at the G7 summit in Taormina, Sicily, was widely interpreted as foreshadowing a more self-conscious Europe. As such, Merkel’s speech tied into discussions surrounding European “strategic autonomy” which were prominent in the European Union’s (EU) 2016 Global Strategy, and which led to intensified European coordination in defense matters through the mechanism of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) after December 2017. In brief, Trump’s renewed insistence on burden-sharing within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as well as the broader transatlantic alliance and his perceived unpredictability seemed to have propelled European leaders to reconsider Europe’s role on the world stage.

A 2018 study by the European Council on Foreign Relations revealed that support for a stronger EU role in the neighborhood, both in the east and in the south, commands widespread support. While many differences persist relating to the balance between east and south, the level of ambition in EU common defense, and the role of NATO in this process, there is a new dynamism to the debates about the EU’s role as a global actor. This ambition was reiterated when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen introduced the team she would be leading in a “geopolitical” commission and when Josep Borrell, Europe’s new high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, suggested in an op-ed published shortly after his appointment that Europeans “must relearn the language of power and conceive of Europe as a top-tier geostrategic actor”.

Against the background of such discussions and almost four years after the publication of the EU Global Strategy (EUGS), it is important to take stock of how the EU’s approach to the Mediterranean region has developed. Focusing on two policy areas—the EU’s diplomatic efforts surrounding the Iran nuclear deal and its attempts to shape the course of violent conflicts in Syria and Libya—I argue that much remains to be done in pursuit of European strategic autonomy. In particular, it is crucial to recognize that European strategic autonomy must be more than just a response to President Trump’s unpredictability. Structural pressures will continue to divert U.S. attention elsewhere, even if a potential Democratic president after the 2020 elections might restore American multilateralism. Rather than hoping for a return to normalcy, European strategists and policymakers should therefore prepare for a post-Trump world in which demands on European foreign and security policy remain high. Europe must take greater responsibility: not as a stopgap measure until multilateral globalism is restored as the driving force of U.S. foreign policy and not against the interests of the United States, but as part of a new burden-sharing arrangement anchored in strong transatlantic ties.

The EU Looks South

The EU’s strategic approach to the Mediterranean has evolved significantly over the last two decades. If the union’s “big bang” enlargement in 2004–2007 brought the need for a coherent neighborhood policy into focus by extending the geographical range of the European periphery, the Arab uprisings of 2011 constituted a watershed moment for the EU’s approach to the Mediterranean. Both the 1990 Barcelona Process as well as the 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS) had been driven by the strategic vision of extending the European model of democratic internal organization and multilateral integration propelled by free trade.

These policies “often read like contemporary applications of Immanuel Kant’s treatise Perpetual Peace,” as political scientists Rosanne Anholt and Wolfgang Wagner appropriately suggested.

Quoting the 2003 ESS, the ambition was to promote “a ring of well governed countries to the east of the European Union and on the borders of the Mediterranean” with whom it could “enjoy close and cooperative relations”.  The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was established as a set of instruments meant to achieve this goal.

A strategic vision relying on the prospect of sustained peace based on common liberal norms and shared prosperity does not have much traction in the current context, however. The 2011 Arab uprisings and their aftermath upset such optimistic notions, if indeed they ever constituted appropriate readings. From a European perspective, regional upheaval and instability in the Mediterranean since 2011 is sobering in a double sense. To begin with, democratic aspirations did not take hold in the region, with the exception of Tunisia. While this did not necessarily vindicate arguments suggesting that Europe’s southern neighbors were “not ready” for democracy, it did demonstrate that upholding democratic political processes in an inhospitable environment required significant political investments, both by domestic and international actors. European determination to support democratization in Tunisia is a consequence of this realization. Secondly, developments on the ground after 2011 foreshadowed a regional playing field characterized by authoritarian retrenchment, violent conflict, and increasing influence by regional and outside powers at odds with European interests and values. The EU’s new emphasis on “principled pragmatism” was a reaction to a regional situation which was unlikely to be moved by the EU’s traditional soft power instruments.

On the institutional level, a review of the ENP in 2015 and the development and adoption of the EUGS in 2016 signaled a reevaluation of the vision for and instruments of European policy toward the Mediterranean. The EUGS established resilience as the new strategic leitmotif of EU objectives in its periphery. While the concept is flexible enough to be seen as a continuation of the ESS’s emphasis on good governance and democracy by some and a turn toward stabilization policies by others, it is clear that the EU’s overall assessment moved from an emphasis on opportunities to one focused on challenges. Reflecting both the significance of these challenges as well as the EU’s limited means, the EUGS refers to “principled pragmatism” as the new European approach to foreign affairs in the Mediterranean and beyond.

A Long Way to Strategic Autonomy

How has the EU fared thus far in its attempts to reach strategic autonomy? The answer is: better than expected and worse than necessary.

On the plus side, the 2016 election of Donald Trump as U.S. president has galvanized European attention; the prospect of his reelection in 2020 continues to do so. Epitomizing this perspective, a recent op-ed by the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell entitled “Embracing Europe’s Power” referred to the United States, China, and Russia in the same paragraph as “global strategic actors” and emphasized the need for Europe to devise “credible approaches”to dealing with each of  these actors. Most telling, however, is that the essay did not even mention the transatlantic bond or NATO. While some of this must be seen as posturing, it is evident that American and European positions on a range of issues have diverged more strongly than ever before.

From the Iran nuclear deal to the American withdrawal from Syria to the Trump administration’s approach to the Palestinian question, Europe often finds itself opposed to U.S. actions in the southern neighborhood.

Instances such as these also reveal Europe’s limitations. Take the Iran deal—also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—as an example. European partners to the deal—France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—insisted on wanting to maintain the agreement in the wake of the American decision to unilaterally withdraw in May 2018. The establishment of the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), which was designed to protect European firms trading with Iran from U.S. sanctions, was a clear sign that Europe was willing to risk tensions with the United States over this issue. In the context of increased tensions between the United States and Iran in January 2020, however, the European parties to the JCPOA decided to trigger the agreement’s dispute settlement mechanism, thus inching closer toward the U.S. position. INSTEX was only activated in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the U.S. turning a blind eye to European shipments of medical equipment to Iran.

From a larger perspective, the example of the Iran nuclear deal illustrates a major limitation of the European approach: even while taking an independent position, the European stance on the JCPOA was clearly geared toward keeping the agreement alive while hoping for a change in the U.S. position, potentially under a new president. As such, it was a stopgap measure, not an independent contribution to shaping the regional security environment. In the specific case of the JCPOA, this approach might be understandable at least as long as there is a chance that Trump will not get reelected. In the larger scheme of things, however, it reveals that European foreign policymakers still hope for a return to the status quo ante in terms of the American approach to the region, rather than contemplating ways in which European policies could achieve specific goals without, and sometimes even in opposition to, the United States.

A second facet of this same limitation was highlighted in the European response to violent conflict, particularly in Syria and Libya. When President Trump announced the withdrawal of troops from northeastern Syria in October 2019—thereby practically greenlighting the Turkish invasion which was to follow—European capitals were not merely taken by surprise, but clearly lacked contingency plans for such an eventuality. When the then-new German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer proposed the establishment of an international security zone in northern Syria, she was greeted with skepticism in all quarters. It became immediately apparent that the initiative had not been coordinated within NATO or the EU and did not even have full support on the national level in Germany. Given a likely Russian veto it was clear that a United Nations’ backing for such an initiative would not be forthcoming. And, while NATO allies reacted politely to the proposal, none of the major military powers volunteered their capabilities, putting the mismatch between Kramp-Karrenbauer’s political ambitions and the availability of European, let alone German, capabilities into embarrassing relief.

The ongoing Berlin process with respect to Libya holds similar lessons. To begin with, given divisions among European partners—in particular France and Italy—Libya for a long time highlighted another weakness of European foreign policy: the tendency by larger member states to prioritize national over European interests. Only the increased involvement of Russia—on the side of the Libyan National Army and General Haftar—and of Turkey on the side of the UN-backed government, created the conditions necessary for the Berlin process to even take place. And even then, the agreed-upon ceasefire and arms embargo remained largely ineffective, as no enforcement mechanisms could be agreed on. When Borrell suggested to the German magazine Der Spiegel that the EU should contemplate military means to enforce the arms embargo in Libya, this step did more to highlight intra-European divisions then to push the Libyan file forward. The EU eventually did launch a new naval mission—EUNAVFOR MED IRINI or Operation Irini—to help enforce these decisions, which took over from EUNAVFOR MED SOPHIA (Operation Sophia) and will be headquartered in Rome and led by the Italian navy under the former Sophia commander Rear Admiral Fabio Agostini. Given that Operation Sophia could not deploy naval assets since December 2019, the crucial question will be whether member states will be willing to step up their contributions to this new mission. Given the current global health crisis, it is not clear whether the EU and its member states will be able to keep their focus on the situation in Libya and on the Mediterranean more generally.

The Berlin process can thus be seen as a success in the areas of traditional European strength: diplomacy and mediation. It simultaneously demonstrates that the EU is far from the type of “joint-up” action demanded in the EUGS; progress on the diplomatic level needs to be sustained by other forms of influence, and European efforts can only be effective if the main European actors truly speak with one voice. Both of these latter elements are lacking in the European approach to Libya.

Embracing Power?

Europeans continue to punch below their weight in foreign policy, particularly when it comes to their southern neighborhood. Some of this has to do with the absence of a common European strategic culture which, coupled with the at times complex decision-making structures in the EU, can make for unwieldy and lengthy procedures.

It is also at least partially a result of a lingering sense of nostalgia in European policy circles for a better time when the United States led and the Europeans could follow—or, some would say, hide behind—their transatlantic cousins.

Trump’s election has begun to erode this assumption, but the realization that at least some part of the U.S. retrenchment is structural still has to hit home.

The EU has reacted to these challenges internally. The notion of European strategic autonomy has gained increased traction across European capitals, even if the precise meaning remains subject to some debate. The deepening of defense cooperation through PESCO as well as a new-found assertiveness on the discursive level also belong to this category. As discussed above, Europe’s approach to its southern periphery holds many challenges. Most fundamentally, those hoping for a stronger role of the EU in foreign and security affairs must also consider ways of assuring that such a role is not undermined by the national priorities of member states. The coordination of different interests and positions does not emerge spontaneously, but must be constructed through active consultations. The structures for such consultations are available, but the political will to use them is sometimes missing.

Moreover, Europeans need to think hard about the implications of a stronger European role in their southern neighborhood for transatlantic relations. While Trump’s unpopularity across Europe has served as a unifying element, there is a risk that the European strategic discourse becomes trapped in defiance. For some such defiance might reflect the hope for a restored transatlantic relationship after Trump, for others a deeper disagreement with elements of the U.S.-sponsored regional order.

Under the conditions of a Trump presidency, these differences among Europeans are overridden by a common opposition to the policies of his administration. Europeans would be well advised, however, to think about Europe’s role in the region under the conditions of a U.S. foreign policy which is more traditional in style—yet might still require a greater European part to play. The Trump presidency has clearly damaged the reputation of the United States across Europe, yet Europeans on the whole remain largely pro-American. Defining a stronger European role in the Mediterranean in coordination with the United States, while accepting that there remain different priorities in some areas but substantial commonalities in others, is an important task for the coming years.

Photos of cleaner and clearer waters of the Venice canals circulated on social media during the early days of the COVID-19 global pandemic. The BBC said this was due to the COVID-19 lockdown, a halt to tourism and hence a drop in traffic in the city. For the first time in years, fish could be seen through the water. Similar incidents of receding pollution and environmental improvement were sighted in the rest of the world.

Lama El-Hatow, an environmental and social consultant at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an international financial institution and member of the World Bank Group, believes that being forced to stay at home has had an overall positive impact on the environment, but how the world chooses to return to normal will determine what comes next. During her online talk hosted by Alternative Policy Solutions, a public policy research project at the American University in Cairo, El-Hatow showed an illustration where future crises were represented in tsunami waves, each bigger than the one before it. She explained that once COVID-19 (the first wave) comes to an end, economic recession, climate change, and biodiversity collapse will follow.

“We all ask when this disaster will end and how, but we need to keep in mind that there are a lot of other bigger crises that will follow,” El-Hatow said.

As a result, COVID-19 and climate change cannot be handled separately. Essentially, if COVID-19 and climate change issues are solved separately, when the virus ends, climate change repercussions will be much harsher than before, and new viruses will continue to emerge. This is particularly critical when one considers that the coronavirus itself came from nature. Research studies have shown that the virus moved from animals to humans in Wuhan, China’s wet markets. “Infectious diseases that cause epidemics are often a result of things people do in nature. The disruption of nature causes disease and 60 percent of these infectious diseases are zoonotic; meaning they come from animals first. This includes AIDS, Ebola, swine flu, and mad cow disease,” she said.

The destruction of ecosystems is the starting point and the reason why these diseases are transferred from animals to humans. Deforestation, for example, destroys natural animal habitats forcing animal migration to other locations where they may come into direct contact with large human populations for the first time, or captivity where they are sold in wet markets thus causing an imbalance to the ecosystem.  There is then a direct correlation between the loss of habitats and an increase in human diseases. For instance, El-Hatow explained that a 4 percent deforestation in the Amazon rainforest would cause a 50 percent increase in malaria.

The Unintentional Benefits of How COVID-19 Was Handled

The global response to COVID-19 may indicate how we should deal with climate change. The past few months have shown that lockdown, quarantine, travel bans, work from home, social distancing, online learning, and reduced transportation were not only able to directly curb the spread of the virus, but also had a positive impact on the environment. Global emissions were also briefly reduced.

Inevitably, however, there was economic disruption as unemployment skyrocketed and global supply chains were affected, explained El-Hatow.

The World Bank where El-Hatow works traditionally holds an annual meeting of some 10 thousand people but because it was done virtually this year, there was a reduction of 79, 500 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. She noted that the quantities of such emissions are equivalent to those produced from the deforestation of large areas of the Hawaiian Islands.

But whether or not the impact of this is only short term is still a question on the table.

While consumer spending did decrease on a whole, it also shifted to new markets. “We are consumption-driven societies, and this increases climate change issues. But when we were on lockdown for three months, consumption decreased in certain areas, for example in luxury goods, but caused an increase in food and medical supplies,” El-Hatow said.

When life returns to normal, higher consumption rates, pollution, and deforestation will come back and perhaps with harsher impact, explained El-Hatow. In China, when shops reopened, for instance, Hermès sold luxury goods for about 3 million dollars. “This is what revenge purchasing looks like. When shops reopen, there are queues of people shopping again.”

This is why returning to “normal” needs to be accompanied with new perspectives based on the lessons learned from COVID-19. When lockdowns were first implemented, businesses and entrepreneurs had to think outside the box with online learning, online working, and remote entertainment, meaning that “business as usual” may never look the same. “We’ll still have to somehow return to normal but it needs to be done in a way that won’t hurt, or increase carbon emissions to worse levels.”

What Should Recovery Look Like?

As people have relatively adapted to life online, there are golden opportunities to be taken. When asked how the world should embrace the digital transition for the sake of the environment, El-Hatow said that people’s behavior is key. “As individuals, we need awareness and to know that what we do, what we consume, and how much we consume, impacts the world. The private sector needs to encourage digital work for remote learning, remote education, remote shopping and remote entertainment,” El-Hatow told the Cairo Review.

But a lot of this is easier said than done, especially with the social disparities that exist in every society and a virus that has left the world in economic decline. El-Hatow stressed that people in lower income households have less internet access than those in richer households and countries. Although there are those who may be able to work from home, many receive daily income salaries and work in the informal economy, which makes them even more vulnerable to climate change and health hazards. The economic downturn caused by COVID-19, according to the World Bank, is predicted to shrink the global economy by 5.2 percent this year—the deepest recession since the second World War.

El-Hatow explained that governments need to work together to flatten both climate change and COVID-19 curves. Creating a balance between the economy and development, and the health of humans and the planet is essential, she said. It is necessary for countries to work together for better long-term results. “For post COVID-19 recovery, there needs to be social inclusion in terms of health care and education infrastructure, investments in renewable energy, and a move to a more digital economy that includes e-commerce, e-payments, e-learning and e-governance.”

At least from the shared experience of COVID-19, global communities have learned about solidarity on the individual, national, and global levels, and have gained some awareness that human behavior does indeed have an impact on our carbon footprint.

The last half-century of Middle Eastern politics has been tumultuous. Many states in the region were still inchoate when what seems like an avalanche of existential crises hit. Iraq fought a devastating war with its neighbor Iran; invaded Kuwait; and was itself invaded and occupied by the United States, leading to the end of Baathist rule and the rise of the Islamis State in Iraq and Syria. Syria and Libya are still locked in civil conflict, while the relationship between Israel and Palestine has only grown more tense over the years, with no clear two-state solution in sight.

Nuclear cooperation is tenuous as the United States and Iran have withdrawn from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Other events, like the Arab Spring, have set the stage for governance and intergovernmental relations in the Middle East today, though their official denouement has passed.

The last fifty years saw the decline of pan-Arabism; the weakening of Arab security cooperation; and with them both, a demotion of Egypt’s standing in the Middle East and Arab World. Though the past five decades seemed marred with trouble, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it; in fact, studying the missed opportunities of Egyptian diplomacy in the recent past can help chart the trajectory of the future. This was the focus of the webinar hosted by the Middle East Institute at King’s College London and the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP) at the American University in Cairo on June 16. If Egypt takes advantage of the lessons taught by its past, it may be able to become a more vocal player in the region and the world.

Egypt’s Global Future

“Egypt has gone into strategic hibernation,” Martin Indyk, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the Israeli–Palestinian negotiations, said. In the Modern Middle East, there is a vacuum in regional security leadership that “Egypt was designed to fill”; however, it has not yet stepped up to the task, he added. 

This vacuum is not new; though Egypt was once a major player in the Middle East, it began to lose its status in the late twentieth century. While Indyk pointed out that Saudia Arabia has attempted to take the reins, he is skeptical of its ability to succeed given Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s repressive tendencies. Instead, Iran and Turkey have seized the opportunity, mirroring the divide between Arab and non-Arab axes that characterizes the modern Middle East. In January, Turkey deployed troops to Libya to intervene in its civil war after signing an economic agreement with the United Nations (UN)-backed government the month before. In November 2019, the BBC reported that Iran “is winning the strategic struggle for influence in the Middle East against its rival, Saudi Arabia”, by strengthening proxy ties that give the Islamic Republic sway in crises in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. 

“The absence of an effective Egyptian pole will be felt” in the region, says Sir Derek Plumbly, Visiting Professor at King’s College London and former British Ambassador to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He believes that the Egyptian “heft” displayed throughout history “speaks to what might come if Egypt were able to take a more active diplomatic role” once more.

It has many opportunities to do so. Indyk pointed out that the situation between Israel and Palestine today is at a critical juncture. “Israel is about to drive a stake through the heart of the two-state solution” he said, referring to the impending Israeli decision to annex parts of the West Bank. “Egypt could stop it like that,” he added, snapping his fingers. 

Historically, Egyptian participation was the sine qua non of peace negotiations. Former Egyptian Foreign Minister and Founding Dean of GAPP Nabil Fahmy agreed, calling on Egypt to be vocal. “It’s important to preempt the crisis rather than to face it,” he assented.

Yet, Washington does not value Egypt’s geopolitical role, Indyk stated. For example, the attempts of the Trump administration to orchestrate the Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA) fell apart because the United States didn’t fully understand Egypt’s relationship with Iran. “Jared Kushner and Mike Pompeo would have done well to read [Fahmy’s book],” he finished.

Now, Indyk points to a retrenchment of the United States in the region. Though this was started by former President Barack Obama, it has been exacerbated under Trump. The U.S. pivot away from the Middle East was caused by a number of factors: mainly China’s rising geopolitical threat and a decline in oil dependency. 

But, for Fahmy, a huge opportunity exists to turn regional leadership into international action. “I can’t compete with the United States in Latin America, but I can in the Middle East,” he said, intimating that Egyptian initiative in the region would compel U.S. action in kind. 

“Unless regional players lead, the region will not get better. We will be a compliment to someone else’s interests.” 

Indeed, there are many challenges specifically to Egyptian national security that require regional coordination, chief of which are the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), and Turkish involvement in Libya.

Construction of the GERD began in 2011, and has since spurred a conversation about water-sharing rights between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan. For Egypt, which relies on the Nile for 85 percent of its water, continued access to the river is crucial.

“We have no substantial options besides the Nile,” said Fahmy. He identified three necessary levels of decision making: national; tripartite; and independent arbitration, wherein decisions would be binding.

On the Libyan front, its western neighbor is significant to Egypt mainly because of its status as a border state. However, aside from a security vacuum leading to increased terrorist activity on its western border, Fahmy warned that continued conflict in Libya would exacerbate the existing imbalance between Arabs and non-Arabs in the region. “We need to have a tough love conversation, as Arabs, with Turkey, Iran, and Israel,” he prescribed.

Generally, the Egyptian–Turkish relationship has deteriorated since Egypt experienced its revolutions in 2011 and 2013. But, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Turkey has gradually reoriented itself away from Europe and toward the Middle East in a bid to fill the regional leadership vacuum. Now, as Turkey deepens its incursion into Libya, the countries find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. While the Egypt–UAE–Saudi Arabia bloc supports the rebel contingent led by General Khalifa Haftar, Turkey backs the UN-supported government that holds control of Tripoli. This Spring, Egypt even launched a naval commando force in collaboration with Libyan fighters loyal to Haftar to block Turkish aid to Tripoli.

According to Fahmy, this regional imbalance can be traced back to the 2003 Iraq War, the U.S. instigation of which Fahmy described as “baseless”. Similarly, the Arab security paradigm itself, which was one strong, crumbled due to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Both of these events fractured the region and made the Arab states in the Middle East overly dependent on foreign parties for security, setting the stage for modern challenges in cooperation. 

Though important, the U.S.–Egyptian relationship has always been uncomfortable. For Fahmy, it’s because the countries are, in many ways, too similar; Egypt sees a form of ‘American exceptionalism’ in itself. Egypt attempts to fulfill regionally the role that America plays internationally.

Egyptian–Russian cooperation was at its peak in the 1960s; but, in October 2018, Egypt and Russia signed a partnership agreement to renew their cooperation. The agreement has two components: economic and military. While it will lessen barriers to bilateral trade, it will also initiate cooperation on counterterrorism, migration, and nuclear programs. The last provision will manifest in joint funding of the construction of al-Dabaa power plant on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast.

“I’ll be very candid with you: what Russia can offer on a day-to-day basis does not compare to what America can offer on a day-to-day basis, despite America’s shrinking role internationally,” Fahmy said. 

For Egypt, it’s not about ‘picking sides’: “A country like Egypt doesn’t have the choice of being isolated,” he explained. Decision making cannot be a function of ‘replacing’ the United States with Russia, as is commonly conceived of, or vice-versa. The same logic applies to an Egyptian relationship with China: “The dollars and cents aren’t in the West anymore,” Fahmy explained. “They’re not even in the Middle East—they are much more in Asia.”

Ultimately, Fahmy’s thinking is fully progressive. “Egypt is 70 percent and Africa is 60 percent youth. They don’t want to talk about history; they want to talk about the future,” he said. There’s only one way through crises, and that’s forward: stop dwelling on the past, and start thinking strategically about the future.

A Peaceful Middle East for All?

However, if Egypt is to play a more influential role in any prospective peace negotiations, it needs to draw inspiration from its pivotal position in decades past.

The 1973 War created an incentive for peace between Egypt and Israel; before the war, Egyptian efforts to broker peace were ignored. Additionally, the war forced the United States to see Egypt as a viable negotiating partner. But, the peace process did not continue without fault after the war. The Syrian failure to attend the first Geneva conference was the first mistake. Not only did not going send a negative message, but Syrian attendance would have kept the process under United Nations auspices, which would have ensured that negotiations stay regional and multilateral.

Second, the potential of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who together with former Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization Yasser Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for their role in constructing the Oslo Accords, was never fulfilled. The Rabin–Peres team was instrumental in moving things forward from the Israeli side; but, they had an opportunity to do more, especially with regard to settlements.

Almost a decade later, in 2000, the Camp David Summit hosted by the United States suffered from acute diplomatic mismanagement. Not only was the timing wrong, but communication was faulty; then-U.S. President Clinton asked former Egyptian President Mubarak to persuade Arafat to accept U.S. parameters without describing what they were. But, Fahmy maintains that it was a mistake on Arafat’s part to reject the Clinton parameters. “Not having them ultimately meant that the Bush administration and so on and so forth was not going to be supportive,” he concluded.

The failure of the 2002 Camp David Summit was part of a broader trend; historically, the peace process has been overly dependent on the United States. 

“They’re not, they never were, and they never will be an honest broker,” said Fahmy of the U.S. role in peace negotiations. He cited the Obama administration and former Secretary of State John Kerry as an example; then, the disagreement that ultimately stalled peace was between Israel and the United States, not Israel and Palestine. Yet, the Arab Peace Initiative that was first endorsed by the Arab League in 2002 was also lacking. It seemed to be reactive to 9/11 rather than a true drive for peace.

Parallel to the urgency of resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict is setting realistic goals on nuclear proliferation. In this dialogue, the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is pivotal. It could have been made more effective by taking a narrower lens to its objectives; at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, parties should have chosen to extend the treaty for only twenty-five years rather than indefinitely. In another example, the document’s makers originally sought for unanimous ratification. 

Additionally, one of Egypt’s key conditions in joining the NPT was that its regional partners join as well. Yet, to date, Israel is one of four countries not party to the convention, alongside India, Pakistan, and South Sudan. “We’re not going to have security in the region if there’s an imbalance in national security capacity,” Fahmy emphasized.

But, Fahmy emphasized that Egyptian diplomatic decisions were hindered at the turn of the century by domestic turbulence. According to Fahmy, there were essentially three President Mubaraks in power over his thirty-year rule: one each decade. With each decade, the former President’s “willingness to take the icebreaking role” declined. For example, Mubarak was eager to enter Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion in 1990; however, in 2010, it would have been difficult to persuade him to take the same measures. In addition, it was increasingly difficult to persuade Mubarak to assent to any American initiative; it was held that the United States’ relationship with Egypt was superficial, based only on their need in the short-term.

Hassan Elbahtimy, who acts as a lecturer in the War Studies Department at King’s College London and chaired the conversation, echoed this warning against “too much stability” and not enough innovation in policymaking. Could that have helped smooth Egypt’s transitional period after Mubarak was removed from power?

“Everyone says Egypt has been in transition since 2011; no, transition began in 1952,” Fahmy emphasized. Since 1952, Egyptian leaders have struggled to build an Egyptian identity through an inclusive social contract. Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak all had clearly defined goals; however, they were overwhelmed by domestic issues because of this lack of a social contract. In turn, Egyptian soft power has waned. “We lost soft power when we started to contain people’s thoughts,” Fahmy warned. He explained that, though Egypt was once a cultural icon for others in the Middle East, the region has begun to pivot toward western Europe, the United States, and Asia as a result.

Yet, Fahmy remains very patriotic: “No one else in the Arab World could have survived two revolutions in two years and remained a functioning state, and we did,” he said proudly. His final disclaimer: “I am a strong supporter of 2011. I also think that 2013 was necessary. But 2011 and 2013 were a call for a bigger role in determining our future, and we need more openness to do that.”

The debate over the questions of whether Israel will or should annex parts of the West Bank and what the international community will do in response has been robust. Supporters of annexation in Israel and the United States justify their position by pointing to a broken, perhaps irreparable peace process, Israel’s historical and religious claim of sovereignty over the Holy Land, support and encouragement from the Trump administration, and what is believed will be enhanced security for Israel and Israeli settlements. 

For these supporters, Israel today enjoys a unique opportunity to do what it should have done sooner. They discount the potential impact annexation will have, whether it means the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority, the end of security cooperation, the anger of Jordan and some Arab states, or the possibility of punitive actions by some Europeans. They argue that Israel has outlived such manifestations of anger before—for example, when Israel extended its law, administration and jurisdiction over Jerusalem and the Golan Heights—and that this anger too shall pass.

Opponents of annexation, meanwhile, have focused on the illegality of such a move under international law and the death sentence this will impose on the search for a peaceful outcome of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Generally speaking, the opponents of annexation are also opposed to the Trump administration’s so-called peace plan, and thus they believe that the green light that the U.S. plan has given to annexation disqualifies the United States from its traditional role as a third party mediator between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Opponents also point to the questionable benefits that annexation will offer to Israel. If Palestinian security cooperation ends as a result, the entire burden of maintaining security in the West Bank will fall on Israel. If Jordan’s commitment to its obligations under the 1994 peace treaty weakens under popular pressure from a disgruntled Jordanian population, Israel’s security challenges will increase significantly. The Israelis have also now heard from the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States who published an article in the Israeli press saying Israel needs to choose between annexation and normalization with the Arabs.

For the current Israeli coalition government, the pathway to annexation is clear and without many obstacles. According to the coalition agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz must discuss the issue of annexation in the context of its impact on existing peace agreements, taking into account the views of the international community. Following this discussion, and with the “full agreement” of the United States, Netanyahu is free to put forward an annexation bill for the Knesset’s consideration.

The American administration appears to be of mixed minds regarding the timing of any action on annexation, probably attributable to the multiple crises that the United States is facing – the Covid-19 pandemic that has taken an enormous toll; the resulting economic downturn which has been formally defined as a recession; and the mass demonstrations following police killings of African Americans. These crises are occurring in a presidential election year, further complicating the administration’s calculations on foreign policy issues.

U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has outlined three conditions necessary for American support: completion of the mapping exercise by a joint Israeli-U.S. committee to establish the areas to be annexed; Israel’s agreeing to freeze settlements in part of Area C; and Israel’s acceptance to negotiate with the Palestinians on the basis of the Trump plan. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has further said that the decision to annex is for Israel to decide. However, unnamed administration sources in Washington have also said that July 1—the date earmarked in the Israeli coalition agreement as the start date for the annexation process—is not sacred, leading many to believe that the administration wants Israel to slow down.

Israel is also beset by mixed domestic opinions about annexation. As expected, the Israeli left vigorously opposes the prospect of annexation, arguing that it will bury an already-moribund peace process. Significantly, a large cross section of former Israeli generals and high-ranking security officials have come out strongly against annexation on security grounds, arguing that it will hurt, rather than enhance, Israeli security. And, somewhat counter-intuitively, some politicians on the Israeli far right also oppose the idea because it does not go far enough: they do not want annexation limited only to the settlements and the Jordan Valley, and they do not accept the Trump plan because of its inclusion of the prospect of even a truncated and non-contiguous Palestinian state.

Thus far, Netanyahu and Gantz have shown no hesitation in arguing for annexation. To the consternation of many in the Blue White party, both Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi, the foreign minister, have publicly been steady supporters of annexation, especially related to the Jordan Valley. In fact, Gantz’s decision to join Netanyahu in coalition and to back annexation led to a split in the party that he formed, with about half of its members going to the opposition.

Views from outside Israel have been heavily weighted against annexation, ranging from strong statements and threats of retaliatory action coming from some European states to a succession of public and private messages from American public figures, including the presumptive Democratic candidate for U.S. president, former Vice President Joe Biden. Perhaps most significant, the Palestinian Authority has taken a decision to “absolve” itself of all agreements and obligations, including security. In recent days, senior PA officials have started to describe their strategy of demonstrating what the real cost to Israel that annexation will entail, most importantly in security and economic responsibility for the Palestinians under occupation.

After all this dust settles and after all the arguments for and against annexation are put forth, the most vexing and most practical question that remains is what policy sense does it make for Israel to do this? Opponents of annexation will argue that this question is not relevant and, is in fact naïve, for they view Netanyahu as an irreconcilable ideologue who will try to lock in as much of the territories as possible and thus take advantage of Donald Trump’s presidency. Netanyahu has said as much himself, that Israel may not have such an opportunity like this again to assert its claim of sovereignty over the West Bank.

Even so, however, the move makes no policy sense from any rational perspective. Israel fully controls the area, and no one is currently challenging its control. The peace process is moribund, if not dead, and thus there is no pressure on the horizon of a situation arising wherein Israel might be asked to negotiate away a part of the territory. And, even the Trump plan does not envision Israel’s sovereignty over the whole West Bank.

Moreover, the current situation is extremely comfortable for Israel. Until the annexation issue rose to the fore, the Palestinian security services functioned well and in close coordination with Israel. Their primary mission has been to maintain order in Area A, that part of the West Bank that the 1995 Oslo II Agreement designated for full Palestinian Authority control; but in doing so, they have also relieved Israel of the burden of day-to-day law and order activities in Area A. 

Responsibility for the Palestinians’ economic well-being in Area A has also been the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority. While there have been problems regarding unpaid bills and periodic withholding by Israel of customs and tax revenue owed to the Palestinians, the cost to Israel of maintaining the occupation has been reduced as a result of the existence of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel’s regional relationships have flourished under the status quo, notwithstanding the ongoing occupation. To be sure, Arab governments continue to pay lip service to the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian issue still resonates among the Arab public. But the absence of a peace process and the current level of Israeli control in the West Bank have not stopped Israeli-Arab state relationships from improving.

Thus, despite its apparent simplicity and naïveté, the question remains why the Israeli leadership thinks it makes any policy sense to upset the status quo by acting unilaterally, and in defiance of such a significant cross-section of opposition both at home and abroad, to annex part of the West Bank. The answer is probably as simple as the fact that it can be done, and thus—for Netanyahu and his supporters—it should be done. It is this short-term political thinking that makes no policy sense at all.

Perhaps the most important takeaway for those interested in the peace process and a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is captured in a headline of an Anshel Pfeffer story in the June 12 edition of Haaretz newspaper: “Netanyahu won: World demanded Israel make peace, now it just begs it not to annex.” Thus, even if annexation does not take place, it will be imperative to avoid a sigh of relief and instead to resume the hard work against occupation and for the two-state solution. 

Disclaimer: This article was published before Israel–United Arab Emirates peace agreement, or the Abraham Accord.

For many years, delivery drivers—like so many other workers now deemed essential—blended into the background of daily life around the globe. Despite their ubiquity in an era of inescapable e-commerce platforms, they have often gone widely unseen, unrecognized, and uncared-for by the societies, corporations, and customers they serve. 

Yet amid nascent protests by Amazon, Target, and Instacart workers in the United States over the lack of protections during the coronavirus pandemic, a Time Magazine cover—typically reserved for world leaders and influencers from various fields—featured a thirty-two-year-old Beijing-based delivery driver for a March coronavirus special edition. Such recognition is justified, as delivery drivers around the world have provided lifelines to communities, which have relied on them for critical necessities—from foodstuffs to medical and cleaning supplies—during the pandemic. 

That delivery driver, employed by the Chinese e-commerce giant Meituan, represents around three million deliverers nationwide in the $65 billion online food delivery market that serves almost six hundred million customers in China. During the pandemic, Meituan’s mobile app, which features 5.8 million merchants in 2,800 Chinese cities, experienced an unprecedented 400 percent increase in demand for online groceries.

China’s e-commerce growth has been driven by the creativity and tenacity of its entrepreneurs and aided by supportive government policies. A sector that was once viewed as a collection of copycats is now producing globally-used apps. With a digital economy valued at $2.3 trillion that makes up 57 percent of global online sales, China’s e-commerce sector is rising to meet the challenges of the coronavirus outbreak and economic recovery. This era of innovation has only been amplified during the pandemic, as online platforms have helped to successfully digitally connect and safeguard the health of a vulnerable, homebound population. Now, paradoxically, even as China’s internet is cut off from most of the world, the country has been making forays to expand its online retail successes on the global market.

These Chinese e-commerce innovations have taken place while the clouds of the coronavirus outbreak and an ongoing trade war have hung over the U.S.–China relationship. Both countries are on the precipice of a new Cold War, and complete decoupling between the world’s two largest economies is being deliberated. In this climate, the natural reaction of the United States would be to shirk China’s e-commerce advances to its shores. However, what does economic decoupling achieve when the American economy is hurting and the Chinese domestic market presents so many growth opportunities for American businesses, particularly in the e-commerce sector? Tracing the growth and development of China’s e-commerce sector, its innovations during the coronavirus lockdown, and the trends in economic reopening, there is little doubt that a U.S. decoupling policy toward China that accompanies an underestimation of Chinese economic resilience at this critical moment would be a grave mistake.

The Growth and Development of China’s E-Commerce Sector

There is an indelible link between the 2003 SARS epidemic and the rise of e-commerce in China. As the SARS outbreak spread throughout the country, the population faced circumstances similar to those of 2020: a homebound population paired with increasingly accessible devices and internet connectivity. China’s embryonic e-commerce sector filled the void, most notably by the iconic emergence of Taobao—an online retail platform run by Alibaba. By 2005, founder Jack Ma led the company to begin marking that period with Ali Day, an annual celebration of the commitment of its four hundred  employees working from home to keep the platform afloat. Around the same time, Richard Liu closed his chain of consumer-electronics stores and formed JD.com. These two companies heralded the country’s move to online retailing and advanced logistics networks. When Alibaba and JD.com launched their platforms in 2003, China had around 79.5 million internet users (6 percent of the population). Today, in part fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, that number has exploded to 904 million (64.5 percent of the population). See the chart below for a comparison of the internet and mobile payment penetration rates in China and the United States.

Although several Chinese tech companies were launched by copying foreign companies, their application of digital technology and mobile payments grew to be more advanced, and their intimate knowledge of local culture and consumption behaviors made them more competitive in market share, worker hiring, and financing in China compared to overseas counterparts. The major e-commerce platforms in China today have expanded to include:

• Suning (1990), which has 1,600 brick-and-mortar stores around the country and sells physical merchandise, ranging from home appliances to baby care products;
• JD.com or Jingdong (1998), which is a business-to-consumer marketplace that purchases inventory from brands and operates its own logistics chain; 
• Tencent (1998), which developed the social media app WeChat and the WeChat mobile payment system and has financial stakes in JD.com, Meituan, and Pinduoduo; 
• Alibaba (1999), which developed the Alipay (Ant Financial) mobile payment system and has two major online retailers: Taobao and Tmall. Taobao was modeled on eBay as a consumer-to-consumer marketplace, whereas Alibaba’s Tmall was established as a business-to-consumer marketplace hosting local and international businesses;
• ByteDance (2012), which is one of the newest entrants to e-commerce and plans to sell products through its internationally-renowned apps, Toutiao and Douyin (Tiktok). Tiktok, which allows users to share short videos and has become particularly popular during the global lockdown, has more than eight hundred million users; 
• Meituan-Dianping (2015), which is a merger of Groupon-like voucher sellers Meituan and Dianping and combines food delivery; restaurant, entertainment, and travel booking; and customer reviews into one universal online-to-offline platform; and
• Pinduoduo (2015), which has become widely used in rural areas for its combination of bargain shopping, gaming, and social media, is the largest interactive e-commerce platform in the world and has overtaken JD.com to become the second largest e-commerce site in China behind Taobao.

These e-commerce corporations, their platforms, and the Alipay and WeChat Pay mobile payment systems that have transformed financial transactions would not have been able to expand so rapidly without the ongoing efforts of China’s government to promote improved internet infrastructure throughout the country and the development of global e-commerce. More recently, the government launched a new strategic development plan for “new infrastructure.”  The Chinese “new infrastructure” projects include a focus on digital services such as 5G networks, the Internet of Things, and data centers, drastically accelerating the country’s e-commerce advancement.

The Impact of “New Infrastructure” on E-Commerce

The creativity of China’s e-commerce entrepreneurs would not have been rewarded had domestic internet infrastructure—from accessibility to increased speeds—not been prioritized by policymakers at the highest levels.Even as the number of Chinese internet users has skyrocketed over the past two decades, many Chinese living in rural areas remain unconnected, with the country’s internet penetration rate of 64.5 percent lagging far behind the U.S. rate of 89.8 percent. To address this digital divide, in 2015  China’s State Council committed to invest $22 billion by 2020 to expand its broadband coverage to rural areas. To illustrate the rapid speed of Chinese broadband growth, in 2013, 17 percent of both Americans and Chinese were connected to broadband internet. By 2019, 86 percent of Chinese had broadband access compared to only 25 percent of Americans. 

Following its broadband improvements, the next advancements on the horizon for China include expanded 5G network infrastructure, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain technology, all of which will serve to enhance China’s e-commerce sector. In May 2020, Premier Li Keqiang led the State Council in calling to vastly enhance internet infrastructure to spur digital consumption and encourage the development of apps for online working, distance learning, telemedicine, vehicle networking, and smart city technologies. More than $106 billion is expected to be invested in this infrastructure in 2020.

The Chinese leadership has also amplified its promotion of cross-border e-commerce, the value of which exceeded $26.3 billion in 2019 (an increase of 38.3 percent from 2018). In April 2020, President Xi Jinping called for accelerating the growth of globally-oriented e-commerce. To implement these goals, China’s State Council plans to establish forty-six new pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce. in addition to the current fifty-nine pilot zones, where businesses are exempt from value-added and excise taxes. 

The private sector has mobilized behind these efforts, with Alibaba allowing U.S. companies to sell through its platforms beginning last summer. In just one year, as of April, the number of Alibaba transactions involving U.S. businesses grew more than 100 percent, and the number of active U.S. buyers increased by 76 percent. The Chinese government has also paved the way for e-commerce innovations during the pandemic in the areas of autonomous delivery, telemedicine, online education, and livestreaming.

E-Commerce Advances During COVID-19

Some technological developments grow out of the need to respond to crises, reflecting the adaptability of innovators, though advanced infrastructure and systems are important prerequisites for success. In the early months of 2020, there was an unassailable advancement of China’s e-commerce platforms while many other sectors of the Chinese economy lay dormant. While online sales dropped 0.8 percent overall when comparing the first quarters of 2019 and 2020, a broader comparison between those first quarters shows impressive year-on-year increases in several categories. For example, sales grew in physical commodities overall (by 5.9 percent); agriculture products (by 31 percent); fresh food (by 70 percent); and household necessities, including kitchenware and fitness equipment (by 40 percent). The growth in these categories was made possible by the creative innovations of e-commerce platforms as well as their ability to keep consumers and employees safe.

If not for the pandemic, China’s tech giants would not have innovated so quickly. Similarly, the government would not have moved so quickly to support their advancements, nor would their innovations have been as widely adopted by society. Their adaptation and success during the pandemic have been helped by the fact that they 1) prioritized the health of their customers and employees by employing subsidies and price freezes on products and implementing safe delivery processes; 2) allowed easier access to medical services by promoting telemedicine and creating COVID-19 test booking platforms; and 3) connected and networked communities by increasing the adoption of online education and livestreaming platforms.

Prioritizing Customer and Employee Health

Beginning in January, JD.com, Alibaba, Taobao, and Suning pledged to freeze prices and offer subsidies for essential medical goods. They were able to do so by maintaining control of supplies through their digital logistics platforms, notwithstanding the Chinese New Year holiday. Alibaba called on manufacturing partners to reopen plants in over fifty-eight cities to increase production of N95 masks and other medical supplies. Firms also instituted new methods for protecting customers and employees and built new physical infrastructure and volunteer networks to help safely distribute deliveries. For Alibaba and JD.com, these procedures included equipping employees with masks, gloves, and disinfectant; requiring daily temperature checks and mandatory disinfections between hand-offs and before final drop-offs; and adding more deposit boxes in gated communities so that customers could avoid interacting with deliverers. 

To deliver items to harder-to-reach places, firms ramped up the use of drones and self-driving vehicles. The Antwork drone delivery startup obtained the world’s first drone delivery license granted by the Civil Aviation Administration of China in October 2019, and in February 2020 the company made its first drone delivery of medical supplies to the Xinchang People’s Hospital in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province. The first drone delivery by JD.com during the crisis was to Liuzhuang village in Hebei Province, which required a two-kilometer flight over water that helped circumvent a one hundred-kilometer land journey. JD.com also employed its smart vehicles by sending them to the locked-down Wuhan border, where they were remotely operated from Beijing to make urgent deliveries. 

Providing Access to Medical Services

Despite cultural and government policy barriers, there have been great advances in telemedicine in China during the pandemic. Beginning in 2019, the government removed its ban on online sales of prescription drugs, and, during the coronavirus outbreak, allowed telemedicine services to both diagnose and treat patients. As a result, a landscape that had been previously dominated by PingAn’s Good Doctor and Alibaba’s AliHealth has grown to include JD Health, WeDoctor by Tencent, and Dingxiang Doctor. These online medical service providers offer a range of services, from free consultations to free mask and medication distribution. 

E-commerce platforms like Alibaba, JD.com, and Tencent took the lead in offering COVID-19 test booking through their healthcare arms. On April 21, AliHealth began by offering testing appointments in ten cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, and JD Health introduced an app facilitating test booking and result distribution within twenty-four hours in Beijing. Tencent’s WeChat also launched booking platforms for COVID-19 tests in Beijing, Guangzhou, and elsewhere.

Connecting and Networking Communities

The pandemic has served as a catalyst for increasing community connections and networks through the rapid adoption of online education and livestreaming. Growth in online education has vastly outpaced expectations because of the pandemic, and the sector is expected to grow 12.3 percent to $61.5 billion this year. China’s EdTech sector had seen growing support from investors and the government before the outbreak. In 2019, the State Council invested $6 billion into AI and tech support for education. China pioneered online education in the coronavirus era by converting classroom education to online education for over 278 million K–12 and college students. By March 2020, China had witnessed a 110 percent increase over late 2018 in the number of users of online education platforms, which grew to 423 million. 

Perhaps most significant for China’s economy, livestreaming has generated new sales channels for small merchants, enabling live interaction through which sellers can showcase their products—like clothes, food, and cosmetics—and personally respond to audience questions. Livestreaming began with Baidu’s iQiyi and digital innovator YY, but it has been taken to new heights by ByteDance with Douyin (Tiktok). Between January and March 2020, TikTok was downloaded 315 million times, the most downloads ever for an app in a single quarter, and surpassed two billion all-time global downloads. Similarly, commercial activity around these livestreaming platforms increased, with Taobao posting 160 percent growth and 300 percent more merchants year-on-year in March 2020. Livestreaming has become particularly popular in rural areas, where connection with consumers during the coronavirus has been challenging.

Not all of China’s e-commerce advancements have been positive from the perspective of civil liberties and privacy protection. They have laid bare the precarious nature of the close relationship between the government and tech companies. While China implemented its e-commerce law in January 2019, the country’s legal framework, intellectual property rights protections, and general understanding of the rights and responsibilities of e-commerce platforms remain weak. In the push for cross-border e-commerce, China’s firms lack a strong pool of talent to manage the unique political, economic, and legal environments they will encounter abroad, just as foreign firms will continue to face many barriers to entry and complications with transaction security and logistics in China. 

Perhaps most disconcertingly, data privacy is becoming an even greater concern given reports that, during the outbreak, Alibaba’s Ant Financial and Tencent developed an app utilizing digital barcodes to help the government control the movement of people. This feature will continue to live on in the Alipay and WeChat platforms as COVID-19 recedes and the country reopens.

Decoupling in a Reopening Economy?

A warning sign to retailers around the world, Chinese shoppers have generally been slow to return to brick-and-mortar retailers as the economy has reopened. Fear of new localized COVID-19 outbreaks has led to a second wave of closings for retailers and attractions. To help encourage spending, cities are distributing vouchers for use at restaurants and retail outlets, and the government sponsored an online shopping festival featuring one hundred e-commerce companies. These trends point to the fact that e-commerce is not only the future of retail, but also may be a much-needed method to prop up flagging economies. Businesses and customers around the world will continue to rely on online sales as new waves of COVID-19 infections ebb and flow. 

Without a doubt, the Chinese government’s initial coverup of the coronavirus and its delay in responding have had tragic consequences for both the Chinese public and the global community. But in its subsequent actions, China has also provided critical lessons on global engagement that many other countries could learn, especially the country’s harnessing of the e-commerce sector to do good for society. While it has had occasional problematic lapses, China’s e-commerce sector outperformed its foreign competitors in several vital ways, including by creating jobs, controlling price gouging, and working to ensure product supply. With these advancements, China is leading the transition to post-pandemic recovery.

The success of China’s e-commerce platforms presents yet another foil for the ongoing American retreat from global leadership and progression toward decoupling. The above examples show that collaborating economically with China could potentially bring welcome advances to America’s own e-commerce ecosystem. One area where U.S.–China decoupling is already made manifest is the divide between the use of mobile payments and credit cards. China is unquestionably the global leader in mobile payments with Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay. More than 80 percent of Chinese consumers use mobile payment apps, whereas 80 percent of U.S. consumers rely on credit cards, primarily because of the associated rewards. While the phase one U.S.-China trade deal announced earlier this year cleared some obstacles for Visa and Mastercard in the Chinese market, the card companies have faced years of difficulties. Similarly, American mobile payment providers like Google Pay and Apple Pay have struggled to crack the China market, to the extent that Apple has acquiesced to accepting Alipay in Apple stores in China. Despite the best efforts of both sides to overcome these consumer payment preferences, this dichotomy is unlikely to yield anytime soon.

Shortages of personal protective equipment and medical supplies during the coronavirus crisis have prompted U.S. government leaders to call for forced reshoring of American companies from China, banning sensitive exports to China, instituting further tariffs on Chinese goods, and pulling out of international institutions like the World Trade Organization. While the United States should reevaluate and redistribute its domestic manufacturing capacity and supply chains in light of the coronavirus pandemic, policymakers in Washington must also ensure that any policy changes will help, rather than hurt, American interests in a rapidly changing and perilous global economic environment. With the ongoing desperate need for domestic economic growth in the United States, what is the purpose of ending engagement with China now, when there is so much to be gained economically from collaboration, particularly in the e-commerce sector?

Not a Zero-Sum Competition

From SARS to COVID-19, epidemics have produced uncertainty and economic difficulty, but they have also created new opportunities and transformed business climates—with locked-down consumers and pent-up needs for innovative logistics solutions—from which some of China’s most groundbreaking e-commerce advancements have emerged. These factors—particularly with the rapid growth of China’s e-commerce sector during the time of coronavirus—have produced favorable government policy environments to allow for society’s quick adoption of those innovations, while also propping up domestic and global economies. China’s government is now embracing internet infrastructure development and global e-commerce expansion more than ever before. With a looming global depression, the United States would be wise to avoid being sidetracked by short-sighted economic decoupling with China and consider the opportunities—while avoiding the pitfalls—of the Chinese market.

Unfortunately, there are many inherent and inexorable barriers to that collaboration. But amid the ongoing coronavirus blame game and U.S.–China trade war, everyday people—from American soybean farmers to Chinese live streaming florists—are fighting against the same disease and for the same prosperous future, neither of which is a zero-sum competition. To arrive at that prosperous future, they will need to leverage new technologies to sell and deliver their crops before they die on the vine. U.S.–China collaboration on global e-commerce trade may indeed provide their best bet.

In trying to understand the potential effects of COVID-19 on society, some commentators have looked to the Black Death – the name given to the Yersinia Pestis plague that first ravaged Europe from 1347 to 1351. The Black Death started the Renaissance, caused the end of serfdom and “feudalism,” led to the Reformation, and so forth. While such claims are misunderstandings of that period in history, it is worthwhile to examine the short and long term impact of the Black Death to get a sense of what some consequences of COVID-19 could be—and probably will not be.

Drawing lessons from an epidemic over six hundred years ago may appear foolish, but consider responses then and now to the initial outbreak: disbelief; disparaging other countries afflicted by the plague before it reached you; a range of established medical approaches and quarantines plus quack cures; religious finger-pointing; and scapegoating. Fourteenth century Europeans blamed the plague on a Jewish conspiracy, or on a sinful world; they advised abstinence, penance, even self-flagellation to placate God’s wrath, or turned to lascivious living; people were abandoned or walled up in their houses; a lack of understanding of the disease led desperate people to try a range of cures. Today, we blame China and assault Asians and point at LBGTQ+ people as sinners afflicting the land. We are forced to abandon loved ones, and people search for any cure that might help, including disinfectants and bleach. Some still spout that it is a Jewish conspiracy. Today’s world, for all its science, is not so different.

Many historical developments that modern people are attributing to the Black Death were well underway when the plague struck. Dante Alighieri completed his famous Divine Comedy in 1320; Giotto, who died in 1337, was painting three-dimensional figures with more natural poses, garments, and landscapes; and Francesco Petrarca was crowned as poet laureate in Rome in 1341. Anticlericalism existed before the plague, with kings and common men railing against the bishops and popes with their furs, jewels, and mistresses—Dante placed many of these in various locations of hell. Religion, however, remained strong as many ordinary priests and monks went to their deaths serving their parishioners, and religious belief continued to flourish. The military system that many today think of as feudalism was transforming, with contract armies replacing knights who served in exchange for land. The Black Death may have accelerated some developments and delayed others, but the shift from the medieval to the (early) modern age had already begun. 

The Black Death did have direct effects on European society. First, it was a recurring event. Y. pestis had become enzootic in Europe, with major and localized epidemics for centuries. Medieval people were aware of this, referring to the Black Death as the “first pestilence” or the “Great Pestilence,” while a major outbreak in 1361 was known as the Children’s Plague as many of the victims appeared to be children born since the Black Death. Theatres in Shakespeare’s day were closed when plague broke out in London. Although not constant, plague became a part of life. 

That presence was reflected in art. Skulls crept into art as memento mori, reminders of death – often in the oddest places, tucked away in a corner. A popular theme for literature and art was encountering a future, dead self. Death was the great leveler and tombs, even of bishops and kings, featured two effigies: one showed the deceased in their glory in life, in armor or robes, while the other depicted a worm-eaten corpse. Following the Black Death, people became concerned with dying well and being prepared for death: now that life could be cut short so quickly, making a will and being shriven were not acts that could be left for the deathbed. There were even manuals on the subject, copied by hand in the early fifteenth century and then printed.

Was the Black Death a levelling force, allowing for a reorientation of society and economy? It may have made that possible, but it did not happen. No one was immune to the bubonic plague, but those with wealth found it easier to avoid crowded areas and limit their exposure. Furthermore, wealth meant better nutrition and medicine; a series of harvest failures in the 1310s had created a malnourished generation which may have exacerbated mortality, and in England the population level was in decline before the Black Death. Some point to the higher wages and standard of living made possible by the death of so much of the workforce; less has been said of governmental attempts to fix wages at pre-plague levels. The “golden age” hypothesis also assumes that there was enough work for those who survived. Fifteenth-century Europe fell into a major recession as a shortage of silver coin exacerbated economies reeling from population decline and the Hundred Years’ War. With this, the position of farmers and workers declined.

Looking to the present day and years to come, what are the trends or developments that might advance or accelerate in the wake of the current pandemic? The automation of the shopping experience (online shopping and self-checkout in physical stores) has been spreading quickly, while malls and department stores have been in increasing trouble. Already, bankruptcies are multiplying. Telework has been growing too; with more people working from home (or just about anywhere with wifi), what will happen to the physical office and to office buildings? Then we must consider the further consequences if these trends intensify. Carbon emissions have been dropping thanks to the lockdown; will telework continue that? There already is a movement toward walkable urban centers and bike lanes; the decline of malls and office parks and easy online delivery could advance that further.

The Black Death did not fix the economy or standards of living and COVID-19 will not either, not on its own. Like its medieval predecessor, COVID-19 has had a disproportionate effect on the poor and minorities in the US, and perhaps even more so in the developing world. As many of my colleagues have pointed out on Twitter and other platforms, patriarchy did not disappear and the situation of women may have worsened in the centuries following the Great Pestilence; currently, women are being forced to balance work and childcare in new ways, with many forced to give up the former. Change is not going to happen automatically; those looking for improvements for workers, women, minorities, and others will have to work for it.

This article was written as part of the Addressing Global Crisis Project (AGC), which is run by the University of Central Florida’s Office of Global Perspectives & International Initiatives (GPII). AGC examines how governments, individually and collectively, deal with pandemics, natural disasters, ecological challenges, and climate change. AGC is organized around five primary pillars: (1) delivery of services and infrastructure; (2) water-energy-food security; (2) governance and politics; (4) economic development; and, (5) national security. Through its global network, AGC facilitates expert discussion and features articles, publications and online content.

Youssef, a Sudanese refugee in Cairo, laments over the fact that he has just been laid off from his job at a cafe. His children, who previously attended public school, now do not have the means to attend the virtual classes being held as they have no access to a laptop or stable internet. He says he will defer their education as his priority now lies in giving them enough food and shelter. His friend Mubarak shares a photo showing a woman attempting to hide her face through visible tears—her few belongings strewn on a dirt road. She has been evicted for not paying rent, recently having lost her source of livelihood.  

For Egypt’s refugee community, numbering 256,632 officially registered asylum-seekers and refugees, COVID-19 has been particularly difficult. Not eligible for government cash assistance and without financial support from non-profit organizations, many refugees now find themselves unemployed and unable to receive any help. This is in addition to the fact that sixty percent already live below the poverty line. 

While much of media coverage has been focused on issues refugees in camps face due to COVID-19, barely any attention has been given to those who live in large urban cities, often crammed together in informal settlements. Egypt does not have any camps, rather allowing its refugee population to live in its urban areas. Cairo’s refugees are not fully integrated with the host community either economically or socially, and often live in their respective tight-knit communities in less economically well-off, and often informal, neighborhoods. This not only puts their close-knit communities in danger from contracting the virus but jeopardizes Egypt’s overall response to COVID-19, which aims to enforce measures of social distancing. 

A recent year-and-a-half-long study I conducted along with two other legal experts for the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo showcases the importance of Egypt’s legal frameworks on employment and healthcare and also the implications if practice does not meet theory. Can they be enough to make sure its refugee population does not fall through the cracks of the country’s COVID-19 response?

Unlike its regional neighbors in the Levant and the Gulf, Egypt is signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its subsequent 1967 protocol. In fact, according to our research, Egypt has many different legal frameworks which can be beneficial to refugees in light of COVID-19, and therefore, be valuable to Egypt as a whole as it answers to the worldwide pandemic. Now, more than ever, Egypt needs to address the gaps between its legal entitlements and on-the-ground experience. If done properly, Egypt can be on the forefront for including a “whole of society” approach to its response.

The 1951 Refugee Convention states that refugees are entitled to be treated on par with nationals of a foreign country when it comes to employment. In addition, any employment restrictions imposed on foreigners should no longer be applied to a refugee after he/she has resided in the host country for three years, or has a spouse or children holding the nationality of the country of residence. In Egypt’s domestic framework, the right to work for non-citizens is highly regulated and has many restrictions such as an expensive work permit, which is to be renewed yearly, and a requirement that all workplaces not allow more than a 10 percent foreign workforce. With regards to self-employment, refugees seeking to open a business need to submit the necessary paperwork along with a business plan to the Ministry of Investment and pass a security clearance.

As these requirements are incredibly difficult to fulfill, many refugees resort to working in the informal labor market, without any permits or contracts, or rely on financial support from NGOs or family members, which is often scarce. That said, our findings have shown that many refugees in the informal sector have already lost their jobs or have not been financially compensated for work that was completed before measures to fight the pandemic were put in place. Others were affected by measures that resulted in the closure of many cafes, restaurants, and coffee shops.  

Mubarak said that many in his community have lost their jobs as domestic workers and cleaners in Egyptian households, particularly single mothers. He worries about where these evicted families will go. While some may move in with other members of the community, having crowded apartments may pose a risk to the health and well-being of these households.   

Refugees are also entitled to proper healthcare: through cooperation between the Ministry of Health and Population and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, refugees have access to public primary, secondary, and emergency health services, same as nationals. The Ministry of Health has set up a hotline for questions regarding COVID-19 and requests for medical assistance throughout Egypt, which can be used by anyone. 

However, reality on the ground could be much different. Mohamed, a member of the Somali community, said that he would rather stay at home and self-isolate than attempt to be treated at a public hospital, where he has been turned away before due to his nationality.  Another Sudanese community member believes that due to the overcrowding and lack of resources in the hospitals, refugees who do try and access the hospitals will also be turned away for lack of beds.  As no biographical information has been reported, it is difficult to know what the effects the spread of COVID-19 has had in the refugee communities, but sources from the refugee community have confirmed cases, and at least one death, all occurring in an informal settlement.  The Egyptian legal framework with regards to access to health services is strong and on the side of vulnerable populations if the lack of resources can be overcome. 

Egypt has in its pocket many legal tools that it can use to include refugees in its COVID-19 action plan for the greater public health and employment. What remains to be seen is if the law will be enough to help the most vulnerable during these times of great unpredictability.

All names have been changed due to confidentiality.