An Analysis of EU’s Tough Policy Towards the Middle-East and North Africa （Zhao Chen）

Abstract：With the Obama administration’s global strategic gravity center shifting to the East and the US is shrinking its presence in the region of Middle-East and North Africa, in 2012, EU and some of its member states, in face of the fiscal pressure brought about by the Euro crisis, are very tough towards the Syrian and Iran regimes, with more and more hardline foreign policies. Rather than a passive adjustment, the EU’s handling in Syria and Iran nuclear crisis is a full demonstration of its global political aspiration, and a new development of its “effective multilateralism” principle of foreign policies. In 2003, when the Bush administration’s unilateralism reached peak, the EU raised the concept of “effective multilateralism” to stress the necessity of “multilateralism” in dealing with international crisis. After Obama was elected as US president in 2008, the US foreign policy pay more and more attention to multilateralism. After “multilateralism” was achieved in Libya, Syria and Iran (there is a possibility of US unilateralism in Iran), to be “effective” is the principal goal for the EU and its member states. “Effective” crisis solution includes the EU and its member states idea of avoiding humanitarian disasters and promoting denuclearization in the Middle-East, uplifting its international reputation, as well as the practical considerations of maintaining their influence at the pro-colonist regions. In order to “effectively” address the crisis, the EU countries such as France and Britain launched the air strikes against Gaddafi regime of Libya, and the EU has carried out the unprecedentedly economic sanction over Syria and Iran.

IES innovation project briefing，No. 29, 2012.