New security concepts.

3. New security concepts.

Globalization has influenced the conceptualizations of security in the Northern and Southern Mediterranean countries, albeit in different ways. In the North, the change has been in the direction of moving from the concept of national security, where the reference object is the territorial state, to the concept of international security, emphasising interdependence, to the concepts of world security, fundamental security and global security, emphasising global risksand challenges affecting human beings in general. This new conceptualisation emphasises that the international system is becoming increasingly differentiated from the traditional state system. As a result, the new process of global interconnection implies a redefinition of time, space and state power. It also implies the deterritorialisation of the socio-economic, cultural, political and military space. In fact, some Western academics and politicians are emphasizing the diminishing importance of states as international actors. In the South, there has been an increasing emphasis on the expansion of the concept of security to incorporate developmental dimensions and linkages with regional and global processes. However, because of the newness and sometimes fragility of the structures of the nation-state in the South, there is also an emphasis on considering the nation-state, as the basic political unit of analysis around which Mediterranean security should be structured. .In general we can say that in the new international environment, security is still a public good that only states can provide. Security is not a question of markets nor of transnational enterprises. Globalization has also influenced Mediterranean security in some other ways, the most important of which have been the introduction of neo-regional arrangements such as the establishment of the Mediterranean Forum in 1994 and the launching of the Barcelona process in 1995 leading to the projected Euro-Mediterranean partnership. These projects would have been almost unthinkable in the pre-globalization era, and are based on a neo-regional philosophy. The challenge is to establish genuine Euro-Mediterranean linkages, which benefit

all the actors involved in a balanced way and to address their economic and security concerns. To do this it is fundamental to construct the region as a viable political, economic, cultural, security and ecological region and acknowledge its transnational linkages at the same time. But the process needs first the prior recognition of the political will for increasing co-operation. Globalisation also has its dark sides, which have taken the form of the spread of drugtrafficking, illegal trans-Mediterranean immigration, and the spread of neo-epidemics that

individual countries are unable to address on their own. This is further complicated by the persistence and escalation of traditional conflicts, which makes the task of dealing with the new security challenges a formidable task. This calls for finishing the classical agenda in order to clear the road for establishing a pan-Mediterranean regime for coping with the new security challenges.

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