Strategic Autonomy in a Crowded Mediterranean: The EU, the New Pact, and the Influence of China and the Gulf States

The EU’s New Pact for the Mediterranean represents a renewed effort to consolidate the Union’s role in its southern neighbourhood at a moment of heightened geopolitical competition and shifting global alignments. Framed as a comprehensive and forward-looking strategy, the Pact seeks to bring together economic cooperation, energy, migration governance, and security under a more coherent political framework. Yet its launch coincides with a period in which the EU’s credibility and reliability as an external actor have increasingly been questioned, both by partner states in the Mediterranean and by observers of EU foreign policy more broadly. Against this backdrop, this paper examines how the expanding presence of China and the Gulf states shapes the environment in which the New Pact is being implemented. Rather than labelling and treating China and the Gulf states as external obstacles to EU action, the paper approaches their growing influence as a consequence of longer-term structural developments in EU–Mediterranean relations. Throughout time, the EU’s engagement in the region has been marked by fluctuating priorities, internal divisions, and the selective application of conditionality, particularly in areas connected to governance, migration, and conflict. These dynamics have thus contributed to perceptions of the EU as a demanding but often inconsistent partner. In contrast, China and key Gulf actors have emerged as increasingly attractive alternatives, offering investment, infrastructure, and political engagement that are widely perceived as more predictable and less encumbered by normative constraints. As such, the paper draws on qualitative analysis of EU policy documents related to the New Pact for the Mediterranean, official statements by EU institutions and member states, and publicly available material on Chinese and Gulf engagement in selected Mediterranean countries. Using illustrative cases from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean, it traces how Mediterranean partners navigate between different external actors, not as passive recipients of influence, but as strategic actors seeking to maximise room for manoeuvre. Particular attention is paid to moments where repeated appeals for deeper cooperation with the EU have been met with limited or delayed responses, encouraging diversification toward alternative partnerships. The analysis suggests that the New Pact operates in a regional context where the EU no longer holds a privileged or uncontested position. China and the Gulf states do not merely compete with the EU in economic terms, but increasingly shape expectations about what constitutes a reliable and advantageous partnership. This has important implications for the EU’s ambition to enhance strategic autonomy in the Mediterranean. While the New Pact signals political intent, its effectiveness ultimately depends on the EU’s ability to address credibility gaps and reconcile its normative claims with more consistent practices. By situating the New Pact within a multipolar Mediterranean environment, the paper contributes to debates on EU external action, strategic autonomy, and the evolving nature of influence in regions where Western dominance has started losing its influence.