Pushing the Lame? European Support of Parliaments in North Africa after the Arab Spring

After the 2011 uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, prime partners for EU democracy support remained governmental organisations or civil society groups. Parliaments, the ‘level in between’, meanwhile, were mainly left outside, largely due to their traditional ineffectiveness and non-importance across the Arab world. Contrasting this, the paper argues that parliaments are attractive partners for successful democratisation support in the Arab transformation countries indeed, as strengthened legislatures are central for building democratic polities and overcoming societal cleavages. Based on own research in Egypt and Tunisia, the paper first describes how the parliaments (‘constitutional assemblies’, respectively) have contributed to the transformation processes in both countries since 2011, and then analyses the existing cooperation among parliaments across the Mediterranean Sea, identifying areas where increased engagement from the European side would be advisable to further democratic polities in North Africa, particularly in Tunisia, but also in military-ruled Egypt.