EU Security Actorness; case-studies from the Greater Middle East

In the post-war era, Western Europeans focused on economic integration whilst retreating from colonial responsibilities. Nevertheless, as the two superpowers influenced emerging post-colonial conflicts such as that between Israelis and Arabs, the practice of European Political Cooperation ¿ exemplified by the 1980 Venice Declaration ¿ highlighted a major foreign policy stance in what was an otherwise economic union. With the unforeseen geostrategic developments following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the EU endeavoured to reinforce its crisis management components, leading to the European Security & Defence Policy. Concomitant with a wider theoretical basis of 'security', and covering aspects including norm-transmission, economic cooperation and civilian-oriented crisis management, the EU's multidimensional nature in security provision is highlighted with regards to the case-studies of Israel/the Palestinian Territories (security sector reform), Iraq (training of authorities) and Morocco (economic cooperation).