Over the course of two decades, the task of making sense of Euro-Mediterranean relations has become ever more complex. On the one hand, the political and economic crises in Europe and the uprisings in Southern Mediterranean countries have entailed power reconfigurations at different levels. On the other, the number of EU policies and interventions targeting the Euro-Mediterranean region has increased. These all address diverse challenges and overlap significantly.
One of the key principles threading its way through the EU responses to these challenges in the Neighbourhood over time has been that of joint ownership (or co-ownership),1 which was formally spelled out in 2004 in the Strategy Paper of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Without the perspective of EU membership, which was a precondition for applying conditionality to third countries under the enlargement policy, joint ownership is deemed the principle that enables the EU and third countries to define cooperation objectives through mutual consent and âgive added weight to the agreed priorities for actionâ (European Commission 2004a, 8). Over the years and across policies, the concept has been used by the EU as a means for achieving âpartnership in its wished-for meaningâ (AttinĂ 2003, 181) and differentiating among partners in the regions beyond the EUâs borders. Joint ownership is not easy to define nor to grasp and assess. It is a dynamic concept that might not be directly observable. Moreover, there are many potential policy owners. Some scholars have tried to engage with the concept as an instance of agency in international relations (IR) and it has proved useful for shedding light on different aspects of power, asymmetry, and cooperation in the global arena (Boughton and Mourmouras 2002; Lachapelle and McCool 2005; Aliboni et al. 2006; Carbone 2008; Johansson-NoguĂ©s 2011). They have not, however, advanced its definition and systematically identified the factors determining its presence or lack thereof.
Taking EUâTunisia relations as a case study, this book has two main objectives. First, it contributes to the conceptualisation of joint ownership. Second, it uses joint ownership as an analytical lens to study and better understand power relations in Euro-Mediterranean negotiations. Hence, the book provides answers to the following questions:
- 1.How did the EU and Tunisia conceptualise and pursue joint ownership throughout twenty years of cooperation (1995â2015)? Which variables determined these conceptualisations?
- 2.How did the Euro-Mediterranean negotiation framework affect joint ownership in EUâTunisia relations?
As suggested by Boughton and Mourmouras (2002), an operational approach to ownership must include an analysis of the processes of dialogue, negotiation and signalling that could strengthen ownership over time. Indeed, the dynamics and behaviour of the parties in the negotiation process contribute to understanding policy outcomes, since they inform mutual perceptions, shape actorsâ memory and influence the nature of the relationship (Kremenyuk 2013; Pfetsch 2012). Against a flourishing debate on the EUâs external action especially after the Arab Uprisings, negotiations over the main EUâNeighbourhood agreements have been rather overlooked. NorthâSouth dynamics and asymmetrical relations between the EU and third countries have been partly explored (Meunier 2005; Elgström 2007; DĂŒr and Mateo 2010; Reslow and Vink 2015) but when it comes to the EU and Southern Mediterranean partners, agreements have rarely been investigated from a negotiation perspective (Trauner and Wolff 2014; El Qadim 2018). The main consequence of this gap is that partner countries tend to be considered recipient partners (whether they embrace the policy or not) rather than players in a two-way policy process. This approach prevented joint ownership from being systematically traced and studied so far. In answering the research questions, I adopt a sociological institutionalist perspective on EUâTunisia negotiations, concentrating on how the structure of the negotiation process drives actorsâ interactions not only by allowing them to put forward (or not) their preferences (Aspinwall and Schneider 2000) but also by creating meaning and knowledge (Finnemore 1996).
The book argues, first, that the different conceptualisations of joint ownership by the EU and Tunisia are both the result of material factors, be they external or internal, and of their evolving perception of the âselfâ and the âotherâ in the global arena. Then, it claims that the architecture of Euro-Mediterranean negotiations, established and strengthened to avoid that partners accept a pre-determined set of priorities and ensure that the terms of cooperation could be defined by common consent (European Commission 2003), affected the level of joint ownership in EUâTunisia relations over time, by constraining their capacity to shape the negotiation outcomes and their perceptions of symmetry and asymmetry. The impact of the institutional framework on joint ownership depends on the political target (such as an autocratic or a democratic regime) and on the kind of agreement under negotiation.
1.1 The Explanatory Potential of the Concept of Joint Ownership
Why is it worth taking the concept of (joint) ownership seriously? How can it provide new insights into EUâTunisia relations?
Local ownership is featured in the scholarly debate on development cooperation since about 1996, following the formal embrace of this term by the OECDâs Development and Assistance Committee (DAC) in 1995. Literally, it involves rights of possession. However, scholars have mostly considered its figurative meaning, ranging from a sense of attachment to a programme or operation to real control over cooperation processes (Chesterman 2007). In the development field, local ownership means that aid interventions are designed in a way that allows recipient actors to exercise authority over timetables and reform processes that have been designed far away from their reality. From a normative perspective, ownership could compensate for asymmetric relations and ensure effective cooperative relations. According to its figurative meaning in this field, local actors, at different levels, could own the idea/objectives, the decision-making process, the outcomes, or all of these. Chesterman and Narten have identified the responsiveness of international actors to external interventions; the stages of consultation, participation, accountability and effective control; and full local sovereignty as observable criteria that can be used to measure ownership in state- and peacebuilding operations (Chesterman 2007; Narten 2008).
Similarly, the international political economy (IPE) literature dealing with International Monetary Fund (IMF) reforms has examined ownership primarily in the context of agency models (Boughton and Mourmouras 2002), focusing on how participation of local parliaments, NGOs and local stakeholders in cooperation programmes increases the legitimacy (Best 2007) and effectiveness (Drazen 2002) of development policies. IPE scholars define ownership as âa willing assumption of responsibility for an agreed program of policies by officials in a borrowing country who have the responsibility to formulate and carry out those policies, based on an understanding that the program is achievable and is in the countryâs own interestâ (Drazen 2002, 2). A narrower concept of ownership, focused on prospects of implementation, is adopted by Bird and Willett (2004), who argue that wider participation does not necessarily guarantee better implementation of IMF-supported programmes.
The EU integrated the principle of ownership into its external policies later than other international organisations, as it formally appeared in EU documents only in 2004, as a key principle of the ENP. Prior to this definition, the main ordering principle in EUâthird countriesâ relations was that of partnership, designating a âworking relationship that is characterized by a shared sense of purpose, mutual respect and the willing-ness to negotiateâ (Pugh et al. in Buchanan 1994, 9). According to the ENP Strategy Paper, the special relationship between the EU and Neighbourhood countries should be based on mutual engagement, and bilateral agreements should be âendorsed by the highest instance in place...