“Energy”: a cross-cutting influence on EU widening and deepening
Type: Project report
Author: Iain Begg and Andreas Pointvogl
Date: December 2008

What impact will volatile energy prices have on European prosperity? What are the EU's real priorities within its energy policy, and what should they be? Does a common approach to energy policy make sense, given the structural differences between national energy markets? Is a fully integrated European energy market a necessary condition for a common European energy policy? Is it feasible at all? How far should integration of energy policies go? How economically and environmentally sustainable is Europe's energy supply? What are trade-offs does EU energy policy have to reconcile? How dependent is Europe on Russian gas and oil? What is the relationship between today's geopolitical conflicts and energy supply security? ...more

Paper 83: The Frameworks for Elections in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Syria 
Authors: Mahjoob Zweiri, Michael Meyer-Resende
Date: April 2009 

It is generally assumed that elections in the Southern Mediterranean largely lack credibility, being managed events used by political elites to gain as much political legitimacy with as little challenges to the status quo as possible. This assumption is not wrong, but it is too simplistic: First, it says nothing about the long-term trend in the region to consider elections the only source of legitimacy for political office, while in the past Socialism or Pan-Arab ideologies competed with electoral legitimacy. Second, it does not take account of exceptions, such as the genuine democratic elections for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 2005 and 2006, or partly competitive elections in Lebanon, to name two examples from the Mashreq. Lastly, it sheds no light on the more complex picture emerging in a case-by-case review. ...more

Paper 82: State and Anti-System Party Interactions in Turkey and Lebanon: Implications for European Policy
Authors: Bülent Aras, Jad Chabaan, Özge Genç, Ebru Ilhan
Date: March 2009

This paper assesses the feasibility of applying the concepts of securitization and de-securitization in understanding state and anti-system party interactions in Turkey and Lebanon. It aims to contribute to the debates on different formats and methods of state interaction with anti-system parties (i.e. the parties that exert a radical form of opposition politically) and their implications for the “securitization of policies” in the Mediterranean by analysing two case-studies. The first is Turkey, where Kurdish politics, driven out of the legitimate boundaries of the political system, emerges as an issue of security. The second case is Lebanon, where the Shiites’ impending need for political participation, combined with Hezbollah’s lingering armed status, creates a widening sectarian rift and crisis of legitimacy, thus securitizing Lebanese politics. ...more