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8 Helsinki Monitor 48 (1997)
The Mediterranean Basin as a New Playing Field for European Security Organisations

handle is hein.journals/helsnk8 and id is 50 raw text is: The Mediterranean basin as a new playing field for European security organisations Rienk W. Terpstra' Introduction In an interview with the Siiddeutsche Zeitung on 2 February 1995 the Secre- tary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Willy Claes, indicated that Islamic fundamentalism posed a serious threat to the security of the Alliance. What followed was a storm of protest from the general public and Moslem governments and incredulity on the side of NATO member states. This is but one example of the rather convulsive relationship the West has maintained with Islamic countries in general and Middle Eastern and Maghreb states in particular. Claes' comments came at an interesting moment in Western-Arab relations, since only a few months before initiatives had been set up by NATO to embark on a series of dialogues with Mediterranean states. However, NATO is not the only Western organisation that has launched tite-t- tetes with these countries. The Organisation on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Western European Union (WEU) and the European Union (EU) all have separate programmes in dealing with the region. Clearly, Western concern over the southern shores of the Mediterranean basin has increased over the last few years, whereas it had already been considerable for its eastern coast. The reasons for this renewed concern are as always - but especially in this region - multifarious. Nevertheless, I will present some of them briefly. First and foremost, the region remains chro- nically unstable. The root causes of this instability are economic. The national earnings of most of the countries involved are greatly dependent on the export of oil and natural gas. With the decline of oil prices in the 1980s most of the Arab economies came to a grinding halt. Moreover, the area as a whole increasingly has to contend with a growing water shortage. This has led other problems to come to the fore. The social policies of the progressive Pan-Arab regimes that had appeased their populations up to the 1980s collapsed, especially since population growth has been substantial over the last decades. Furthermore, the uneven distribution of wealth between the oil exporting countries and those with virtually no natural resources, has increased. One result is that religious trends like Islamic fundamentalism, although always present, have gained in popularity. Except for Israel, the southern Mediter- ranean states have no democratic tradition. The only way they see to cope with these problems is brute force. In countries like Algeria and Egypt this has led to serious civil strife between the government and islamist organisations. Internal instability has external repercussions. Especially in areas with inter- 1. The author is grateful to Colonel Joop van Reijn, Commander Cees Wierema, Jaap Werner and Dr. Rob de Wijk. The views expressed in this article are solely attributable to the author.

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