The European Union and Morocco: security through authoritarianism?

Recent international events sparked renewed academic interest for the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, particularly towards the Arab world. Usually, much is made of the normative power of the Union and of its role in exporting the values of democratic governance and human rights. It follows that the policies of the Union in specificregions are judged according to the parameters of liberal idealism. This paper challenges such an assumption and argues that a structural realist interpretation of the Union’s tentative foreign policy makes a decisive contribution to better understand and evaluate what the Union ‘does’ abroad. The paper is specifically concerned with the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and how, contrary to the liberal idealist values of CFSP, it helps securitising the Mediterranean through the promotion and support of political authoritarianism in the partner countries. The case of Morocco is discussed in detail.

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