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Theoretically, the European Union’s (EU’s) policy approach towards the Mediterranean region has proudly hailed cultural sensitivity, but this socioeconomic dedication and foundational principle remains marginal in reality. At this juncture, I will present two case studies to demonstrate that the EU’s institutional structure imbues the governing body with a set of economic priorities, despite the use of a post-Washington Consensus (WC) rhetoric to indicate otherwise. The first case study will reveal how the EU has historically justified its policy rollout and the second case study will unravel the role of ideas in the genesis and activities of the European Development Bank (Knio 2010).

In the previous chapter, we have explored how the need to contain the deleterious effects of illegal immigration prompted several players within the European Community to review the core of its long historical relationship with the Mediterranean countries. In this vein, the post-Essen European Council meeting introduced a novel precedent to Euro-Mediterranean relations by highlighting two important developments. First, the European Union (EU) was interested, for the first time, in linking the economic, political and social spheres into one coherent whole. Second, the EU’s economic philosophy under these new arrangements significantly differed from past practices since they explicitly adopted a market-led approach of development celebrating the ability of open free trade areas to simultaneously provide sustainable peace, economic development and prosperity. These two new developments epitomize what I call the ‘Model’ which characterizes all EU policies initiated after the European-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP). In this chapter, I will first highlight the main components of the EMP agreement with a focus on policies that consolidated this ‘Barcelona Process’ vision through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), Barcelona 2005 initiative and, most recently, the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM).

The complexity and interdependency that characterize the European-Mediterranean relationship could not have been more succinctly captured. In this statement, the European Commission has summarized a long trajectory of political, economic and societal interactions that have manifested within the diverse European-Mediterranean regional space. In the last few decades, the European Community (EC) has been continuously trying, at least rhetorically, to revive its fading post-colonial political relations with its Mediterranean counterparts. The ramification of post-1956 relations meant that the Community had to ensure more political presence in the region in order to counterbalance the hegemonic position articulated by the USA. From an economic perspective, EC’s interests in the region alternated between the need to secure vital energy supplies such as oil and natural gas and the drive to promote trade networks with large, nascent, profitable markets. In recent years, the exacerbation of social problems such as mass illegal immigration anchored the EC’s developmental role in the region and motivated a revision of the content and style of its Mediterranean policies.

The importance of the Mediterranean region to the European Union (EU) has been succinctly captured by the European Commission itself. In fact, the Mediterranean basin is important to the EU for a whole range of reasons, relating to not only geographical proximity but also mutual interests and colonial links. Thus, the Mediterranean is perceived as a politically and strategically important area in the Community’s own backyard where ‘the aim … is the creation of a sphere of influence’ (Corbet, in Pomfret, 1986, p. xii).

Attempts at classifying the political phenomenon have taken on different theoretical forms over the years. Political Science, as we know it today, was previously viewed as part of philosophical, historical and even legal deliberations — all of which have been unable to sufficiently shed light on the nuances of a given political system. Political Science has, to a large extent, been based on the study of sovereign, territorial states and the Westphalian state system. However, the hierarchical role that the political centre plays within each state and its interactions with different bodies of governance continue to undergo major transformations from genesis to institutional consolidation. This trend therefore implies that there is a need for new ways of describing how authority, rights, obligations, interactions, experiences and resources are organized, beyond mere hierarchies and markets. To this end, this chapter will analyse the historical trajectory of institutionalism, starting with Old Institutionalism (OI), and then map the evolution of the Behavioural and Rational Choice (RC) Schools to the New Institutionalism (NI) revolution. This neoinstitutionalist counter-revolution has evolved into a broad church of thinking in itself, as one can easily distinguish nowadays between seven or nine variations across all fields.