ATLANTIC FUTURE

Mesmerized by the trast between spectacular growth in Asia and the Pacific Rim and the West’s hard times, many observers have overlooked a major refiguration of the Atlantic space. The North America – Europe link tinues to be the strongest and largest of the relationships between any two tinents. But their decline in relative terms is slowly being matched by the rise of Africa, Latin America and a newly energised Arab region, all of which are increasing their interregional links and gaining weight in global affairs. Both positive factors, such as the opportunities for better management of shared resources, and negative ones, like the illegal flow of narcotics that harms the whole region, emerge as potential drivers for cooperation, competition or flict.

The main objective of this project is to analyse fundamental trends in the Atlantic basin and to show how changing eomic, energy, security, human, institutional and environmental links are transforming the wider Atlantic space. Research will map the internections between those issue areas across the Atlantic. It will also track the transformation of region to region relationships between Africa, the Americas and Europe from a variety of perspectives from all the Atlantic regions and powers. The project will include a prospective exercise where future scenarios for the Atlantic space will be outlined, in order to identify the opportunities for, and obstacles to, stronger cooperation both on issues limited to the Atlantic and on global challenges. The partners also aim to reach policy relevant clusions for the EU’s Atlantic agenda, including a review of the EU’s interregional links with the other three littoral tinents, its strategic partnerships with the USA, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa and a holistic approach to the whole area – all of them crucial aspects of the role that the EU can play in today’s changing world.