This volume focuses on an initiative, originally launched by the European Union in Barcelona, to put its relations with Arab countries of the Mediterranean (and Gulf) regions on a new footing of equality and mutually beneficial cooperation. The volume provides a detailed empirical account of the initiative as well as an historically contextualized, intellectually critical and politically perceptive analysis of the various realities impacting on this initiative. Among the many obstacles identified are the overriding and economically negative impact of globalized capitalism, and the determination of the United States to impose its own hegemonic political objectives on the Middle Eastern region.

Samir Amin has been Director of IDEP (the United Nations African Institute for Planning), the Director of the Third World Forum in Dakar, Senegal; and a co-founder of the World Forum for Alternatives.

Ali El Kenz is Professor in Sociology in Nantes University, France