Indeed, the EMP can be seen as a nascent and multidimensional regime that aims at establishing links between political, economic and socio-cultural arenas. The core claim here is that states obey the rules embodied in international regimes due to the functional benefits the latter provide. For the moment, however, the regional Partnership represents a balance of separate national preferences, rather than a common Euro-Mediterranean interest per se. Although it sets up a system of flexible regional arrangements, the substantial differentiation of the ratio with the Community budget for the economic reconstruction of Central and Eastern Europe has been the major reason for attracting the interest of southern Mediterranean countries [79]. In particular, the EMP is propelled by a certain ‘economism’ whose financial rather than trade implications are favourable to the non-EU partners. In return to the above, EU governments linked issues of economic liberalisation to a set of political principles and norms of good governance. Keohane, in an influential study that straddled the lines of realist and neoliberalist thinking, suggested that international regimes are ‘institutions with explicit rules, agreed upon governments that pertain to particular sets of issues in international relations’ [80]. This is of special importance considering that Euro-Mediterranean politics combine both power politics considerations and questions of increased complex interdependence. Keohane’s ‘lean’ definition of the term has the advantage of relieving scholars from the burden of justifying their decision to call a given injunction a ‘norm’ rather than a ‘rule’ [81]. The above definition is helpful since norms are not explicit in the complex framework of Euro-Mediterranean relations and since no substantive level of institutional autonomy characterise the operation of the newly formed mechanisms. Although the EMP offers some general rules of conduct to govern the behaviour of the participants, it remains weak in relation to the development of an identifiable set of norms. Ceteris paribus, it can be seen as an international regime in statu nascendi, albeit one that accords with Keohane’s ‘lean’ definition of the term. Without a better or less nebulous definition offered by the acquis académique, such a claim remains valid.
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