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Introduction:

The Middle East and North Africa has shared history with Europe for thousands of years &ndash; 
many times peaceful and many times in conflict; the conflicts between the regions though 
not more numerous than the internal conflicts within the regions. During the last five 
hundred years the capitalistic economy and industrialization developed in Europe, and the 
trade economies in North Africa and the Middle East suffered from this. The European 
colonialism and later the European imperialism caused dependent societies and economies 
and total European dominance upheld with violence. Europe has in this way laid a ground 
for mistrust towards its intentions from the two other regions, and together with differences 
in religion it has influenced the relations for many years. 
 
The Middle East Oil made a change in the relations. Europe and the West became 
dependent of oil supplies from the Middle East and North Africa and Europe and the US 
supported any &ldquo;friendly&rdquo; government in the region to keep stability and secure the oil 
supplies and undermined the &ldquo;unfriendly&rdquo;. The West has supported several rulers who were 
not at all supported by the people in the area. At the same time the establishing of the state 
of Israel created an on going conflict, which the West, especially the US, to a big extent 
has been responsible for not having solved. Pakistan has an unsolved conflict with India 
about Kashmir, and the West supports mainly India. Iran was announced part of the &ldquo;axes 
of evil&rdquo; by the US. The US/West warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq has created other strong 
opinions towards the West. The present Syrian civil war has as one of the consequences 
generated a new anti-West military organization. These conflicts have generated a big 
amount of refugees, at the moment especially from Syria, and they are only reluctantly 
received in Europe. Together all these old and new conflicts have caused terror attacks 
towards the West. The West has again reacted, and the spiral of action/reaction have 
continued, supplied with new constructs of &ldquo;enemy images&rdquo;. It seems as many problematic 
issues. 
 
There are other developments and tendencies. Iran and the West are maybe approaching 
each other despite nuclear disputes and old contradictions. The cultural bonds between the 
regions are still strong. The regions have a lot of mutual trade, and the financial markets 
are closely connected. The oil business demands stability and compromises in political 
actions. The policies of Israel cause more and more annoyance in Europe so e.g. the EU 
will be forced to act towards a solution. Solutions of the conflicts demand cooperation. 
They cannot be dictated. 
 
Europe is trying to keep the Islamic neighbourhood on the other side of the fence, and at 
the same time it is obvious that Europe, like always, has to corporate with these two nearby 
regions. The question is the conditions under which this could take place; who/what decide 
the terms. A global perspective on the matter maybe forces Europe to corporate closer with 
the regions, because the alternative could be that both the Middle East and North Africa 
would turn to Asia and Africa respectively. This does not seem favourable for Europe. 
Even &ldquo;fortress Europe&rdquo; does not appear capable of keeping out the refugees and 
immigrants from the two regions. Europe will have to deal with this &ndash; and deal with the 
people, the immigrants, on a sustainable way. 
 
Europe needs to buy oil, and the Middle East and North Africa need to sell oil. But what 
happens if Europe goes green and does not need the oil in the present amount? A situation, 
which calls for political and social preparation already now. A relevant answer could 
maybe come from the European governments, maybe more likely from various NGO`s. 
Anyway it is important that people in all regions have space for interaction and 
cooperation. 
 
Israel-Palestine conflict 
The Syrian war 
The American/European invasions 
The Arab spring or &hellip; 
Islamism 
War on terror 
Israel&rsquo;s special position 
Coalition and development aid, and loans 
Cooperating or conflicting 
Trade 
Migrations 
History of colonialism 
Oil and its diminishing importance 
Europe with no need for Middle East oil

Directive:

Read the introduction and the questions and make sure you understand the overall aim of 
the task. 
 
Read ALL the files. 
How to use this task: 
 
Variant 1.
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">You can solve the task individually by answering all the questions in the form of a 3-page 
text.</div>
 
Variant 2.

<div style="margin-left: 40px;">You can solve the task commonly, where your teammates and you share different parts of 
the topic among yourselves and present to each other in a form of a course. The whole 
course with all the parts shouldn&rsquo;t exceed 2 hours. 
Each one of you will end up with a 1-page text about your part of the topic and the 
conclusion from your part of the course. All the materials you used for your part of the 
course should also be send to your teacher.</div>
 
Use additional sources if you find it beneficial, especially if you have chosen the variant 2. 
The origin of additional sources must be noted for control. 
 
The issues to work with: 
&bull; File 1: The EU and the Middle East in general
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">&bull; What are the main principles in the European Middle East policy, and what is 
Europe promoting? What is especially in the European interest? What is 
specifically in the interest of the Middle East countries? 
&bull; What role does the article give to the west in the &ldquo;failed states and Balkanization&rdquo; 
of the Middle East &ndash; and why? 
&bull; Understand the three concepts of Islamism and sum up the arguments for the 
need of discussing/negotiating with Islamists</div>
 
&bull; File 2: The EU and the Israel-Palestine conflict
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">&bull; What is the position of EU towards the Israeli occupation of the Palestine areas? 
What are the background and the perspectives of this policy? 
How does the article: Gaza, the Goy look upon the attitudes and policies of e.g. 
Europe in the conflict? 
&bull; What is the position of EU to the peace process? What kind of peace, and 
on which terms? 
What is the hope for or perspective in a two-states solution? 
&bull; The article announce Israel as an outlaw state. What are their arguments for this 
statement? 
How do they look upon the influence of the West esp. the US in this context?</div>
 
&bull; File 3: The EU and North Africa
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">&bull; Read and describe in main points the position of the Middle East and North 
Africa in the European foreign policy. 
&bull; Describe the background and some major consequences of the current migration 
to Europe, legal or illegal. 
&bull; File 4: The EU and Iran 
&bull; What strategic approaches does the article express about the relations between 
Europe and Iran?</div>
 
&bull; File 5: The EU and Turkey
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">&bull; Take a stand to the pro and cons for Turkey&acute;s membership of the EU. 
Who holds back &ndash; EU or Turkey? 
b) What are the changes in the situation that makes Turkey more eager to apply 
for membership of the EU?</div>

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AGNE SIVICKYTE DNS2018

As was written in the introduction of the study task, the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe throughout history had quite intensive connections, which were sometimes peaceful, sometimes causing conflict situations. Most of the relations are based on the economic and political sides, as Middle East territory is very rich for natural resources which attract a lot of attention from the western countries.  Resources are one of the main foundations for power and wealthiness, it can also be one of the reasons for conflicts. It is something that everybody uses, starting from the energy, electricity to the objects that we are manufacturing on a big scale on a daily bases- everything comes from the substances found on our planet. The main resources found in the Middle East are oil, gas, metals, and minerals.
The region of the Middle East in the past decades was facing a lot of crises and conflicts that were relating to the trading goods and it is not a secret, Europe is also involved in this. So according to the study task directives, me and my team, we took this study task as a common study topic for one week. After all, we made courses for each other and writing them in our notes. So in the following writings, I will try to answer the questions and analyze the study task directives by the knowledge I got for the courses of my teammates and the given files.
Before we go to different specific examples of different countries in the Middle East we should touch the aspect of general relations between the Middle East region and Europe. 
As I mentioned before, the European  Union and some of the Middle East countries such as Israel, Iran, Turkey, and others are one of the largest goods trading partners. This factor is a big “game player” when it comes to the point of making political decisions. Decisions mostly are made for a profit of the western countries, which affects the  EU relations between the trading countries and their neighbors.  That leads to decisions that are not always well thought towards people’s side. Starting from supporting and justifying and ignoring one of the biggest nowadays problems such as Israel occupying Palestinian land and different human rights humiliations that were happening in the Middle East region to have a profit from the natural resources. At the same time, the European Union is also supporting by giving aids in many different countries to continue quality trade.
Another important aspect to mention is balkanization or  “Failed State”.European Union is using the term of balkanization towards Middle East countries and with close collaboration with the USA trying to be in control of forming the future of the Middle East. In the sense by influencing different political parties towards the side which is more profitable for western countries. 
The relations between the two sides of the European Union and the Middle East are very complex and hardly tangible. 
To mention a more specific example, we can again take a topic of a conflict between Israel and Palestine and the European Union to stand towards it. According to the given facts we can see, that the EU together with the USA for a long time were ignoring and justifying the clear facts were Palestinian people’s human rights were completely humiliated and not met in the reality. To talk more specifically there were waves of different violent attacks from the side of Israel with no proper response from the international. And what if we would start to talk about all the nuclear weapons that Israel has, here comes, still the silence...  The main factor causing the silence is that Israel is an economically very strong country and it is one of the main trading partners with the European Union.  For that reason, it is very difficult to keep EU transparency towards the conflict and take a stand against the occupation. The main legal ties between the EU and Israel were set in 1995 after Israel became an associated state of European Union, followed by the different agreements by European Neighbouring Policy, Euro Mediterranean Partnership, and Union for the Mediterranean. Besides all of these positive relations and ignorance that I was mentioning before, in the past years, the European Union started to react more critically towards the conflict and express the stand of being pro-Palestine. That statement created a lot of distraction and it made the situation more complex. Until now, the European Union and Israel are trying to find their ways how to keep the connection but still react to the events that are happening. It is also important to mention that the EU is one of the biggest supporters of giving aid to Palestinians. It sounds, beautiful and nice, just on another hand it is very controversial for its other actions, such as supporting the trade with Palestinian oppressors- Israel. It acts like a chain reaction while supporting the trade, the economic surplus that Israel gets it is invested in the military. In that sense, if the EU is trying to act towards the situation with the goal of conflict resolution, it should create a strategy on how to act in that way in general, considering all the causes and effects that they are part of.
As everything is so deeply connected, while talking about Middle East relations with the EU it is also interesting to analyze another part which is North Africa. While talking about this region, personally, the first thoughts that are coming to my head are about migration to Europe, which is nowadays very much present topics. Nordic countries are a very popular destination for many migrants and refugees. In the study files and by our own experience in Africa study travel we can say that there are many different ways how to migrate legally and illegally.  With the boats through the sea, though hiding in the cars or maybe by waiting months and months for your legal papers and there are many more. Though in the past years, EU migration considers a big problem which we need to deal with. Firstly by building big borders, that it would be hard to cross, secondly by creating a different kind of foreign and agreements that could control the migration to Europe.  Since UNHCR 2012, the budget for all the needs for refugees was increased to $709 million, it is still not enough to give a proper life to everybody. It needs to find different ways how to deal with the situation.
At the same time, EU is interested in creating free trade area around the Mediterranean sea, that could make it stronger the economic, social and cultural ties between countries. And of course, in all these agreements the leadings side comes from the EU, wanting better trading partners and economic benefits. It is a way how to spread Neocolonialism and get power.
It is very difficult to make the relationship between these regions transparent, it is always involved economical, the political benefit to one or another side. Taking it as an example of Iran and European Union strategic moves. It sounds like the EU, NATO wants to create peacefully, nuclear-weapon-free the Middle East, which as a result would be no threat to the western countries, While allowing military intervenience which is completely controversial to the previous statement, which creates a distraction and even more conflict.
And the last part of the study task was about Turkey, which in our team created quite a big discussions. Turkey for an already very long time has very close relations with the European Union and it has an intention to even be part of EU, as it is part of NATO already. The main discussion was is it possible that Turkey could join the EU? Firstly Turkey is an Islamic country and culturally has some differences, which could bring diversity from one side, but can also bring some distraction. Also, it's a very big country with a lot of people and it would be the biggest country in the EU which would give some power. Turkey already tried to make a plan on how they could integrate, but by the very strong president Recep Tayyip Erdogan it is remaining question.

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