Pierre Beckouche

Mediterranean Neighbourhood: The Key Triptych Energy-Water-Agriculture

Along with political unrest since the Arab spring, the stakes of the Mediterranean neighbourhood are numerous: social booming disparities, gender gap, numeric illiteracy, critical case of water supply and agricultural land, difficult decentralisation and state de-concentration. But opportunities are still wider: the Mediterranean is the only neighbourhood whose population and GDP’s world share is growing; the rent economy is (slowly) shifting towards a more productive economy with a rising role of clusters; huge investment needs mean huge opportunities for European investors. Secondly, the chapter assesses the trends in economic regional integration (“regionalisation”), showing that the Euro-Mediterranean missing link remains the productive integration. It estimates the importance of the European aid and the normative convergence of norms and standards between the two sides of the Mediterranean (“regionalism”). Its strategic recommendations stress four needs: (i) a common water policy so as to avoid water wars; a food security and agricultural policy; a Euro-Mediterranean Energy Community; turning the “migration” vision to a “mobility” strategy. In the very difficult transition of Arab neighbours, time calls for a political boldness in Euromed cooperation.