Javier Solana had famously stated that European security was best promoted by a “ring of well-governed states.” In practice this meant the cultivation of bilateral action plans in collaboration with the regimes constituting the ring. These plans will now need to be renegotiated with the Arab world’s agents of change that are now or will soon be in government.

A hurricane of change is blowing through the Arab world. Even now, many Arab regimes are still in denial. Why? Because all Arab regimes, regardless of regime type, have essentially behaved like dynasties. And while the wielders of power, everywhere, don’t easily let go one of life’s foremost aphrodisiacs – power − and can’t conceive that anyone else could possibly govern as well as they do, when power is authoritarian and dynastic then it becomes a self-perpetuating tool. Hence the security apparatus that defines all such regimes.

Whatever criticism one reserves for Egypt’s Jamal ‘abd al-Nasir, his attempt to live by principle, humbly refusing to enrich himself or his family, is admirable by today’s kleptocratic standards 

Nobody dares predict the outcome of the present storms (what the state of play will be by the time this article appears is anybody’s guess). But that insistent, ancient character of elite Arab (and Mediterranean) political culture − the reliance on narrow social groups and classes, those with wealth and economic power, to sustain an unwritten contract maintaining the dictator’s rule and circulating power within the state – will not easily disappear.

The malaise in the Arab world is the result of a colonialist and imperialist maintenance of the status quo and the complex ethnic, sectarian, tribal, clan, and familial divisions in Arab societies. What Islam could tenuously or otherwise once do, by serving as the ideologically unifying factor of such pluralism – as Christianity tried to do in Europe − it can no longer do in the modern period because, together with all the major faiths, it is battling for survival.

Arab nationalism purported to fill the vacuum. The Arab nationalists’ legitimacy was galvanized by an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist drive for independence, but it was devoid of a programme for internal democratic reform. The end result was a conglomeration of fearsome parties and military cliques.

The great opportunity now is for the newly forming states to take the lead in representative government and open public discourse, of transparent democratic bargaining and accommodation. The problems of transition are multiple. There are issues of justice, what to do with the old regime and how to reform the security sector and promote reconciliation and allow society to move on. There is also the question of whether Islamist parties will fill the void after so many years when real politics have been semi-comatose. 

Whether Islamists have a political theory and culture to resolve the great problem of authority is questionable. For once political authority is subordinated to a divine prototype and Shari’a, then one has to contend with the varieties and conflicting interpretations of Islam. The alternatives are chilling: either radical transformation, which almost always leads to another modality of repression as we have seen so far, or continuing to wait for Arab states to emerge from underdevelopment under the many regime types that may come to power and which, given half the chance, will forever delay the democratisation of state and society. 

The USA and Western Europe have significant experience in managing transitions; in the case of the Marshall plan after the Second World War, it bound them together. The European Union has also led various transitions, like in Spain and Portugal’s move from authoritarian rule and in the enlargement process that transformed east-central Europe. The EU’s neighbourhood policy (ENP) is intended precisely to apply the lessons gained from enlargement to help reform the countries just beyond the union’s boundaries. 

It is within these parameters that Franco Frattini, Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, has published his pact for Euro-Mediterranean stability in the Financial Times. He calls for a regional order through an ambitious new development and stability pact based on three pillars: substantial (and visible) economic assistance, political partnership, and social inclusion.

Frattini sees an important role for the Union for the Mediterranean, which first saw the light of day over two years ago. He claims that it is time to stop pottering about with the institutions of this new union, a 43-member body incorporating the 27 EU states and 16 Balkan, North African and Middle Eastern partners, and get down to giving it teeth. Few people in the region even know of its existence. Frattini sees the current crisis as a stimulus to redirect the UM towards the concrete tasks announced when it was launched. These include development projects ranging from new maritime and land highways to renewable energy schemes, the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises and creation of a “Euro-Mediterranean higher education, science and research area”.

Frattini’s suggestions also see the EU and international institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund developing an equivalent of the Marshall Plan for Mediterranean economic stability. He proposes offering Mediterranean states a progressive integration into the EU’s internal market, participation in a number of EU programmes and regular summits between the EU and Mediterranean countries. It would lend substance to the principle of equal partnership, on which the new relationship between Europe and the Mediterranean countries must be based. Foreign and security policy should be high on the EU agenda too, with the long-term aim of Mediterranean countries becoming producers rather than consumers of regional stability.

Frattini finally suggests the launch of a massive new Euro-Mediterranean Erasmus programme in higher education to help spread hope among young people. Offering the opportunity to study and train in Europe would also be a way of curbing illegal immigration and trafficking.

All this would be dependent on each country in the southern and eastern Mediterranean improving governance, meeting international obligations and respecting individual rights, including those of women and religious minorities. Frattini sees change in the Mediterranean as a test for Europe and an opportunity for European and Mediterranean countries to work together in the interests of all.

An ambitious proposal and one in which Malta should be able to play an important role.