This paper applies the Europeanization ‘toolkit’ to EU democratization policies in Morocco within the ENP framework.
To this aim, the bottom-up and top-down dimensions of EU-Morocco relations are analysed diachronically both before and after the Arab Spring.
The analysis shows that, before the Arab Spring, Moroccan ruling elite has used the anchorage to the EU as a survival strategy which has in turn been backed by the EU to secure its own strategic interests. In this sense, the EU has merely responded to Moroccan requests and political liberalization strategies, rather than having directly influenced them. This approach is also confirmed after the ‘Arab Spring’, so that EU-Morocco relationships are characterized by a strong continuity with the past.
Therefore, the paper debates the extent to which the very notion of Europeanization might be used with respect to democratization policies in the Moroccan case, which shows an overturning of the sender (promoter)-receiver (recipient) relationship.
