INTRODUCTION
In the last two decades, globalisation and regionalism has gained momentum all over the world. As far as the challenge of regionalism is subordinate to the challenge of globalisation, many countries have chosen regionalism as a way to further integrate themselves into the world’s economy (Fischer, 1998). The rise of regionalism defies the conventional economic theory, which has defined it as the second best when compared with multilateral free trade. However, the economic analysis has for long underestimate the political factors underlying regionalism and its political and security consequences. The literature on international relations has often omitted the economic preconditions for regional integration to proceed successfully. Even the growing literature on regionalism in the international political economy field mainly concentrates on the domestic political factors rather than on the connections between foreign policy and economics. When dealing with regionalism in the Mediterranean, abstracting from political, security and cultural dimensions is
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Indeed, one might ask if the political motivations outweigh the economic ones when dealing with developing countries’ efforts to adhere to regional groupings formerly composed of developed