Tunisia: Europe and the New Middle East

31 October 2011
analysis

The Arab Revolution was a strategic surprise. The dramatic suddenness and scope of the revolution has thrown the region into a state of turmoil. The link has been established from a Tunisian revolution to an Arab revolution: the spread in the Arab bloc points to the nature of the Arab disease. The revolution meets the irresistible call for democracy and freedom. This requirement has ceased to be a theoretical imperative, a romantic contemplation or a European or American plea. People increasingly take on their political condition and elaborate new constitutions on a new basis: this is the fait nouveau. This change in the Arab political order is the foundation of a new Pan-Arabism. This is a first reconfiguration of the regional scene.

By the power of the street or by means of reform and law, fundamental revisions are launched in the Maghreb, the Machrek and the Gulf countries. This effervescence is unprecedented. The only precedent goes back twenty years, when the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, suddenly freed from Soviet domination, began to redesign their system of government and endorse liberal democracy and market economy. A whole part of Europe switched to a new political order. Three factors, however, distinguish the Eastern European turning point from the Arab experience: *One, the support of European and transatlantic economic and strategic institutions; *Secondly, the construction of a democratic, liberal and secular system, along the lines existing in Western societies; *Finally, the inclusion of the new Eastern European democracies in the Western camp. Once completed, this process has resulted in the expansion of European and transatlantic institutions. The restructuring of the European theatre is the result of a vision to make Europe a global player. The Barcelona Declaration and the European Neighbourhood Policy are an expression of this vision.

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