30 years of Euro-Mediterranean human rights promotion: policy learning of roads not taken?

Human rights was one of the key topics embraced in Barcelona when the first ever Euro-Mediterranean Partnership conference was held in 1995 (‘third basket’). Initially the ambition of the EU member states was to stimulate its southern Mediterranean partners to greater human rights compliance in line with international conventions that the latter’s had to subscribed to, similarly to the experience with the East bloc through the Cold War Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The ambition deepened, however, when the EU member states discovered the strategic importance for Euro-Mediterranean stability and security of human rights promotion. On the southern Mediterranean side, the authoritarian regimes had drawn different conclusions on the fall of the Berlin Wall, hence some were more interested in engaging with the EU on human rights and to open up a space for CSOs, while others were not. This paper will look at the evolution of the Euro-Mediterranean human rights promotion between 1995-2025. It will stock of its achievements and failures, and explore the policy learning achieved by EU institutions, governments and CSOs which explains the general lack of traction of the EU's human rights promotion in the region in the past 30 years.