“A virus much smaller than a grain of sand is highlighting the fragilities affecting the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern area, complicating a picture already destabilised by ancient and recent crises”. This was stated by the Vice Foreign Minister Marina Sereni during the webinar “Regional Security and De-Escalation In the Middle East: What role for Europe?”, promoted by the International Affairs Institute together with the Foundation For European Progressive Studies.
“These crises – VM Sereni explained – have developed over the years and affect various levels, from politics to social structures, from economics to religion and culture. Originally the Arab-Israeli conflict, then the divisions between Sunnis and Shiites, then the contrasts that emerged within the Sunni world itself, the 2011 Arab Spring, the divisions on the role of political Islam. These fractures have often found nourishment also in the struggle for regional hegemony, with active roles of actors outside the area. A very complex picture, therefore, but on which we must intervene, especially now, at this particular moment”.
“Only resolute diplomatic action – VM Sereni stated – can make us face the political, social and economic turbulence in the post-Covid-19 world in the best possible way. After some initial difficulties, the European Union is showing its muscles in the battle against this invisible enemy through a series of unprecedented actions, as the adoption of the Next Generation EU package shows – the Vice Minister continued -. With the same determination and courage, the Union must act for geopolitical stability in its southern neighbourhood, i.e. in the Middle East and in the enlarged Mediterranean, regions that represent the testing ground for a real capacity of external projection on the European side. In the face of these challenges and this complexity – VM Sereni concluded – we will perhaps have to ask ourselves whether unanimity in foreign policy is compatible with a more effective and wider role for the European Union”.
