PUBLIC TALK: Morning after the Arab Spring

This lecture aims to explain the EU’s multi-dimensional foreign policy towards the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which is a vitally important neighbourhood for the future of the entire Union and its members. In the EU’s security strategy, the risk of failing states is seen as a major security challenge for collective institutions and individual members. The change of leadership over the past two years under intense domestic pressure (the transformative phenomenon known as the ‘Arab Spring’) has brought about changes in the EU’s neighbourhood policy. The surge of asylum seekers has also put additional pressure on the Mediterranean countries, which have been calling for all other EU members to share the migration burden more equitably.