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Southern Europe's Economic Crisis and its Impact on Euro-Mediterranean Relations

The international economic crisis that began in 2008 entered a new phase in 2010when it became evident that Greece was experiencing extreme financial difficulties, which if unchecked could turn into a contagious sovereign debt crisis across Europe. After being focused on the rescue of the financial system and providing liquidity to markets, governments implemented countercyclical fiscal policies to mitigate the effect of the financial crisis on the real sector. Then the crisis showed a further European public finance dimension and the Euro was consequently put under pressure. In the following months, the public debt markets of several EU member states have been severely affected, forcing governments to adopt highly restrictive adjustment programmes. Budget deficit reduction in the context of sluggish growth and high rates of unemployment seems to be the economic policy equation to be solved for several years to come in most of these countries. The fact that Mediterranean member states have been especially hit has raised the question of what impact could this Mediterranean ‘saudade’ have on Euro-Mediterranean relations in the medium to long term. There are two different aspects here. First and foremost, it is unclear what the impact of the Mediterranean and non-Mediterranean EU crisis on the Mediterranean Partner Countries’ (MPCs) economies will be, and to answer this question requires a prospective and quantitative analysis that is outside the scope of this article. Secondly, there are questions about the effect of southernEuropean economic difficulties onEuroMediterranean relations themselves, in other words the functioning of the whole set of instruments covered by the EU’s Mediterranean policies, particularly its capacity to deliver significant new incentives to its Mediterranean neighbours. Interestingly this second aspect, while being of relatively minor importance from an economic perspective, seems to be more present in European academic debates than the more relevant one of the direct economic impact of the financial crisis on MPCs. However,