Euro-Mediterranean Cultural Relations: A Northern Current in Troubled Waters?

Abstract

This chapter acknowledges that a coherent strategy for the use of cultural tools in EU relations with the Southern Neighbourhood is still missing. This shortcoming clashes with the high security stakes dictated by the perception of cultural and religious differences between Europe and the Arab world, and with the many unresolved disputes between—and within—states in the region. In the absence of a single institutional framework, the EU and its member states have put in place initiatives for cultural cooperation with the Southern Neighbourhood based on ‘variable geometries’—creating various fora, programmes, platforms and networks managed by different actors. Based on the four-edged definition of cultural strategy that informs the volume, the current chapter seeks to analyse this panoply of instruments, also assessing whether shared goals and a common strategic vision (or at least a Lowest Common Denominator) emerge from these practices.