The fifth of May of 2013 could go down in history as the day in which the democratic transition in Libya was derailed. It was on this date that an ample majority of Libya’s interim parliament was coerced by armed militias into passing the Political Isolation Law. The law’s application could condemn the country to live anchored to its dramatic past.
Does a power like the US know what it is doing in a region as important and complex as the Middle East? The question may sound like a provocation, but from its answer stem enormous implications for the international system.
Renewable energies remain marginal in the European neighbourhood, and their contribution to economic and human development is still largely unexplored.
The fall of the wall of fear in Arab societies represents a major challenge, of unknown proportions for Europe, but also an unprecedented opportunity for building a new regional stability based on good governance, inclusive development and mutually beneficial exchanges.
Since the beginning of the Arab Spring, the election of Mohammed Morsi as President of Egypt and the end of Israel’s Pillar of Defence military operation in the Gaza Strip, Hamas has steadily been moving towards a more political stance.
From the point of view of political economy, a crucial point is whether the wave of popular revolts that overthrew the incumbent regimes will consolidate into economically-viable liberal democracies, and in what economic direction Algeria and Morocco will move, since to date they have been spared regime changes with a high budgetary cost.
On 25 January many Egyptians will be commemorating the second anniversary of the revolt that brought down the Mubarak dictatorship. If the Muslim Brothers’ grass-roots and youth supporters fail to correct their leaders’ authoritarian drift, the revolutionaries’ rage may well be directed at the Brotherhood.
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