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Sanctions as a Regional Security Instrument: EU Restrictive Measures Examined

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Projecting Resilience Across the Mediterranean

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Abstract

This chapter discusses whether the EU’s use of sanctions is consistent with its effort to strengthen the resilience of states and societies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). To this end, it provides an in-depth examination of EU restrictive measures enacted towards Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria between 2010 and 2018. Although not effective to their fullest extent, the sanctions designed to support regime consolidation in Tunisia and Egypt were appropriately tailored around the needs of local actors, and can ultimately be seen as successful in increasing state resilience. Sanctions aimed at fostering regime change by impairing the ability of authoritarian regimes to tackle the uprisings, on the other hand, had nearly no noticeable effects on societal resilience, ultimately departing from the principled pragmatism enshrined in the EU resilience promotion agenda.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See European Union (2016a) which will become also a UN indication with UNSCR 2362 of July 2017, and it will be followed by a number of listing of vessels in 2017 and 2018.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Francesco Giumelli

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  1. Francesco Giumelli
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Correspondence to Francesco Giumelli .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Leiden, The Netherlands

    Eugenio Cusumano

  2. The Hague, The Netherlands

    Stefan Hofmaier

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Giumelli, F. (2020). Sanctions as a Regional Security Instrument: EU Restrictive Measures Examined. In: Cusumano, E., Hofmaier, S. (eds) Projecting Resilience Across the Mediterranean. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23641-0_6

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