Reinvigorating Europe's Mediterranean Partnership: Priorities and Policies. NCRE Online Paper No. 01/05

[From the Introduction]. Development cooperation policies are not as well known as the European Union's other common policies such as the common agricultural policy or common commercial policy. Even compared to development policies such as the Lome' Convention, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership is relatively obscure. The concept that the EU has special relations with the non-member Mediterranean countries like Algeria and Morocco -and that these relations are of great importance -is not commonly understood by European citizens. In the UK, for instance, even political scientists widely interpret the phrase 'southern Mediterranean' to refer only to the southernmost members of the European Union (EU) such as France, Italy or Greece, rather than extending to the developing countries bordering on the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. This anonymity demonstrates one aspect of the EU's failure up to the present to shake off the image of 'foreign policy dwarf' (Lister l997)