Discussions at this Meeting for the Aspen Junior Fellows began with acknowledgment that Italy’s maritime border along the Mediterranean is the country’s only extra-European frontier. Italy’s location and coastal development continue to ensure the country a flow of income from its role as a strategic European hub in what has come to be known as the new “maritime century”.
Kick-starting talks at this session of the Aspen Mediterranean Initiative was the observation that the arduous and variegated evolution of the Mediterranean region needs to be viewed within the prevailing global context.
Discussions at this 2-day event got underway with the observation that the Mediterranean Sea clearly connects Europe not just with North Africa, but also the Middle East, the Anatolian Peninsula, and the Persian Gulf. All these axes present opportunities for growth through greater interdependence, in spite of the current difficulties being experienced by European economies and the political uncertainty holding back those on the southern shores of the Mediterranean.
Those attending this second installment of the Aspen Bosphorus Dialogue embarked on a renewed consideration of the overarching issues stemming from the relationship between the trends unfolding within Europe and the transformations taking place in its neighboring regions.
The Mediterranean region is very diverse and simultaneously presents elements of close interdependence: the economic crisis of the past few years has shown that each country reacts to the challenges and opportunities on the basis of specific institutional and social features, even in the presence of important contagion effects. The political transitions in some Arab countries, starting with Tunisia and Egypt, confirm these twin tendencies whereby endogenous and local factors interact with regional and international ones.
Those attending this Aspen Mediterranean Initiative workshop set out to evaluate the impact of the so-called “Arab spring” on the economies of North Africa and on the wider Mediterranean region. The event, which saw the participation of key political and business figures from the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, also marked the launch of Aspen Institute Italia’s Mediterranean Program.
The Aspen Mediterranean Initiative participants concurred that the Mediterranean area is becoming even more diverse than it has been in the past, a fact which calls for special attention to be paid to the situation unfolding in various locales in the region, especially at a time of uncertain political transition in which social forces have a potentially crucial role to play.
It was remarked during this AJF Breakfast meeting that the Mediterranean has been an area of ongoing interest throughout the history of Aspen Institute Italia, particularly during the 1990s, with specially-themed conferences dealing with the subject, and over the last decade, with a focus on the impact of the socio-political prospects of the region on access to energy resources. Acknowledged as a place of encounter and of conflict for thousands of years, the participants also noted its role as a trading space, a “liquid plain” hemmed in by numerous borders, to use Braudel’s description.
