European Union and the Arab Mediterranean Youth: Policy Instruments vs Policy Needs

Youth in the Arab Mediterranean Countries (AMCs) amplified a special attention in the European Union’s (EU) policy agenda since the mid-1990s, particularly together with the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, also known as Barcelona Process. Since then a number of European youth cooperation schemes aiming at international youth mobility, youth work and civil society development have been implemented with the involvement of the EU in these countries. The most prominent and sustainable youth cooperation schemes have been the Euro-Mediterranean Youth Programme; Youth Partnership between European Union and the Council of Europe; and, the youth initiatives of the Anna Lindh Foundation. All three European schemes share some common characteristics: they directly and exclusively target young people; they have been implemented equally in all five countries covered by the “Researching Arab Mediterranean Youth: Towards a New Social Contract (SAHWA)” project, namely Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia; and, they are all fully or partially funded by the European Union. Up to date, there is no analytical research analysing the impact of Arab Mediterranean youth’s participation in those schemes on their lives. Especially considering the extensiveness of the problems of youth in the region, ranging from employment to education and migration to participation, this paper analyses the relevance of the European youth cooperation schemes to the problems of young people in the five AMCs in light of the perceptions and experiences of the young people benefited from those schemes about the impact of those on their own realities. For this aim, the paper makes use of qualitative and quantitative data collected within the context of the SAHWA project through in depth interviews with the representatives of the cooperation schemes and the survey conducted with the former participants of the European youth cooperation schemes, as well as the SAHWA Youth Survey (2016).