The Middle East and the EU: New Realities, New Policies

On March 6th, after three years of work, MENARA Project unveiled its findings during the public conference The Middle East and the EU: New Realities, New Policies held at Egmont Palace in Brussels.

During the event, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the EU Commission Federica Mogherini, highlighted the importance of “resetting our thinking, allowing us to see what could be built”. In this context, MENARA’s scientific coordinator Eduard Soler, senior research fellow at CIDOB, and MENARA’s policy coordinator Nathalie Tocci, director of IAI, presented the main results of their research.

MENARA has brought together 14 research centres from the EU, Turkey, the Maghreb, the Mashreq and the Gulf. The project has analysed geopolitical shifts in the Middle East and North Africa, polarisation at the domestic level, fragmentation and conflict at the regional level, and the increased number of global actors intervening in this particular region. It has conducted numerous fact-finding missions (including in countries such as Syria, Libya and Iraq), almost 300 face-to-face interviews, a Delphi survey with 71 experts, 3 focus groups (Brussels, Rabat and Beirut) and 2 stakeholders meetings (Istanbul and Rome).