Reassessing Southern EU Democracy Support: The Security Dilemma

Erin Jones considers the approach taken by Southern EU Member States (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) to democracy support, including analysis of their commitments made at the Summit for Democracy. The article is part of the European Democracy Hub initiative run by Carnegie Europe and the European Partnership for Democracy. The article concludes that while on first glance it may appear that the Southern EU Member States are lagging behind on democracy support, on closer observation, two things are clear: first, that these countries are prioritising democracy support both within and beyond their borders, but have not scaled up ambitions as much as other countries, particularly the EU Member States in the North. Second, this reticence to scale up attention to democracy is partly because of their location: as major entry points to Europe for migrants, these countries must prioritise national security more strongly than other Member States. It remains to be seen how Russia's unjustified invasion of Ukraine will impact the use of these countries' funding and diplomatic leverage.

Read the full article here at Carnegie Europe.