Euro - mediterranean partnership in the aftermath of the arab spring

The recent democratic upheaval in a number of southern countries, starting with the toppling of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt, can give the EU an opportunity to re-launch the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership on a fresh basis, by recognizing in the first place its responsibilities in the past, not having put the human rights issues at its centre, and by offering the southern and eastern Mediterranean partners genuine equality of conditions.