Divergence in the mediterranean. The economic relations between the EC and the Arab countries in the Long 1980s

The oil crisis in the mid-1980s and relative failure to manage its dynamics showed that the re-balancing of relations between the oil exporting countries of the “South” and the consumer countries of the “North” which occurred in the previous decade was, at best, partial and temporary. It also showed that the industrialized countries of the North still had the upper hand in influencing the patterns of global trade and finance which, in turn, deeply affected the energy markets. It might also be argued that the long 1980s showed all the negative sides of the 1970s: recession, public deficits and debt crisis intertwined with major conflicts throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The economic and political crisis of the Arab world in the 1980s impacted heavily on the relations with the EC: on the one hand, the EC could restore its pre-1970s, traditional economic predominance in the Mediterranean basin, now framed within the new neoliberal doctrine; on the other hand, the Mediterranean basin lost the political and economic relevance it had enjoyed previously, and was thus relegated to the marginality of “security” concerns. Not surprisingly, in the 1980s the North and South shores of the Mediterranean basin entered those patterns of economic divergence that still endure today.