Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vpsfw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T04:25:57.908Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Between ambition and ambivalence: Italy and the European Union's Mediterranean policy1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2016

Maurizio Carbone
Maurizio Carbone*
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow, UK
*
∗Email: M.Carbone@lbss.gla.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article reviews Italy's role in the various phases of the European Union's policy towards the Mediterranean: the ad hoc policy of the 1950s and 1960s, the Global Mediterranean Policy developed in the 1970s, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership agreed in Barcelona in 1995, the European Neighbourhood Policy signed in 2003, the proposal launched by French president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2006 for a Mediterranean Union. The overall argument is that the various Italian governments have carried out an ambivalent and often reactive policy: on the one hand, they have consistently tried to promote a Mediterranean dimension in the European Union, though without upsetting the United States; on the other hand, they have limited the extension of trade privileges to exports from North Africa. While the end of the Cold War provided a new opportunity for Italy to play a more assertive role in the international arena, the two coalitions that have alternated in power have substantially failed to move the Mediterranean to the centre of Italy's and the European Union's external policy. A partial change of attitude – yet a reactive policy – emerged under the second Prodi Government, when Italy and Spain became close allies in an attempt to counter-balance the new activist policy of Sarkozy.

Keywords

Italian foreign policyEuro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP)Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)Mediterranean Union
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 155 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aliboni, R. 1999. Italy and the Mediterranean in the 1990s. In The foreign policies of the European Union's Mediterranean states and applicant countries in the 1990s , ed. Stavridis, S., New York: St Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Aliboni, R. 2003. Neo-nationalism and neo-Atlanticism in Italian foreign policy. International Spectator 38, no. 1: 81–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andreatta, F. 2001. Italy at the crossroads: The foreign policy of a medium power after the end of bipolarism. Daedalus 130, no. 2: 45–65.Google Scholar
Attinà, F. 1998. La Partnership euro-mediterranea. Politica e sicurezza. In L'Italia tra Europa e Mediterraneo: il bivio che non c'è più , ed. Attinà, F., et al, Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Attinà, F. 2007. EU relations with the southern Mediterranean neighbours. Intereconomics July/August: 196–200.Google Scholar
Babarinde, O. 1998. The Lome Convention: An aging dinosaur in the European Union's foreign policy enterprise. In The state of the European Union: Building a European polity , ed. Rhodes, C. and Mazey, S., Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Balfour, R. 2005. Italy's policies in the Mediterranean. In The Euro-Mediterranean partnership: Assessing the first decade , ed. Fernandez, H.A. and Youngs, R. Available online at: http://www.fride.org.Google Scholar
Bonvicini, G. 1996. Regional reassertion: The dilemmas of Italy. In The actors in Europe's foreign policy , ed. Hill, C., London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brighi, E. 2006. ‘One man alone’? A long durée approach to Italy's foreign policy under Berlusconi. Government and Opposition 41, no. 2: 278–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brighi, E. 2007a. How to change your foreign policy in 100 days: A new course for the new Prodi Government? International Spectator 42, no. 1: 129–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brighi, E. 2007b. Europe, the US and ‘policy of the pendulum’: The importance of foreign policy paradigms in the foreign policy of Italy, 1989–2005. Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans 9, no. 2: 99–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cacace, P. and Mammarella, G. 2006. La politica estera italiana . Roma-Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Calandri, E. 2003. Europa e Mediterraneo tra giustapposizione e integrazione. In Il Mediterraneo nella politica estera italiana del secondo dopoguerra , ed. De Leonardis, M., Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Carbone, M. 2007a. Holding Europe back: Italy and EU development policy. Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans 9, no. 2: 169–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carbone, M. 2007b. The domestic dimension of Italy's foreign and development policies. West European Politics 30, no. 4: 903–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carbone, M. 2007c. The European Union and international development: The politics of foreign aid . London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carbone, M. 2008. Italy and the south of the world: still a laggard in international development? Journal of Modern Italian Studies 13, no. 1: 58–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coralluzzo, V. 2000. La politica estera dell'Italia Repubblicana, 1946–1992: modello di analisi e studio di casi . Milano: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar
Croci, O. 2003. Italian security policy after the Cold War. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 8, no. 2: 266–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croci, O. 2005. Much ado about little: The foreign policy of the second Berlusconi Government. Modern Italy 10, no. 1: 59–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dassù, M and Menotti, R. 1997. The ratification of NATO enlargement: The case of Italy. Available online at: http://www.nato.int.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Leonardis, M., ed. 2003. Il Mediterraneo nella politica estera italiana del secondo dopoguerra . Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Del Sarto, R. and Schumacher, T. 2005. From EMP to ENP: What's at stake with the European Neighbourhood Policy towards the southern Mediterranean? European Foreign Affairs Review 10, no. 1: 17–38.Google Scholar
De Michelis, G. 1991. The Mediterranean after the Gulf War. Mediterranean Quarterly 2, no. 3: 1–8.Google Scholar
Faber, G. 1982. The European Community and development cooperation: Integration in the light of development policies of the Community and its Members States . Assen: Van Gorcum.Google Scholar
Fossati, F. 1999. Economia e politica estera in Italia: L'evoluzione negli anni novanta . Milano: Angeli.Google Scholar
Foradori, P. and Rosa, P. 2008. Italy and defense and security policy. In Italy in the European Union: Redefining national interest in a compound polity , ed. Fabbrini, S. and Piattoni, S., Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Ghebali, V.-Y. 1993. Toward a Mediterranean Helsinki-type process. Mediterranean Quarterly 4, no. 1: 92–101.Google Scholar
Gomez, R. 2003. Negotiating the Euro-Mediterranean partnership: Strategic action in EU foreign policy? Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Grilli, E. 1993. The European Community and the developing countries . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, J. 1996. Italy: In the Mediterranean, but of it? Mediterranean Politics 1, no. 2: 176–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ignazi, P. 2004. Al di là dell'Atlantico, al di qua dell'Europa: dove va la politica estera italiana. Il Mulino 2: 267–76.Google Scholar
Jean, C. 1997. Security in the Mediterranean and Italy's role. Mediterranean Quarterly 8, no. 2: 129–45.Google Scholar
Kohler, M. 1991. The Italian search for Mediterranean security in a perspective of transatlantic security relations. Mediterranean Quarterly 2, no. 4: 38–59.Google Scholar
Lister, M. 1997. The European Union and the south: Relations with developing countries. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Missiroli, A. 2000. Italy. In The foreign policies of the European Union Member States , ed. Manners, I. and Whitman, R., Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Pargeter, A. 2001. Italy and the western Mediterranean (One Europe or Several Programme, Working Paper 26). Swindon: Economic and Social Research Council.Google Scholar
Rimanelli, M. 1997. Italy between Europe and the Mediterranean: Diplomacy and naval strategy from unification to NATO, 1800s–2000 . New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Robins, P. and Dassù, M. 1998. Il processo di pace in Medio oriente: gli scenari e le connessioni con la Partnership euro-mediterranea. In L'Italia tra Europa e Mediterraneo: il bivio che non c'è più , ed. Attina, F., et al, Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Romano, S. 2002. Guida alla politica estera da Badoglio a Berlusconi . Milan: Rizzoli.Google Scholar
Romano, S. 2006. Berlusconi's foreign policy: Inverting traditional priorities. International Spectator 41, no. 2: 101–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossi, L.S. 2002. New trends in Italy's European policy. International Spectator 37, no. 1: 97–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saleh, N. 2007. Europe in the Middle East and Northern Africa: The subtle quest for power. Mediterranean Quarterly 18, no. 1: 75–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, K.E. 2005. The outsiders: The European Neighbourhood Policy. International Affairs 81, no. 4: 757–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tosi, L. 2003. L'Italia e la cooperazione internazionale nel Mediterraneo: aspirazioni, interessi nazionali e realtà internazionale. In Il Mediterraneo nella politica estera italiana del secondo dopoguerra , ed. De Leonardis, M., Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Walston, J. 2004. The shift in Italy's Euro-Atlantic policy: Partisan or bipartisan? International Spectator 39, no. 4: 115–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar