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In recent years, Mediterranean Partner countries (MPCs) have been ambitious about reforming their banking and financial systems. Former state‐owned banks have been privatised, and restrictions for international capital flows have been lowered to accelerate investment activities and spur regional economic growth. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate these latest developments against the backdrop of the state‐of‐the‐art literature and derive implications for a reformed institutional setting for sound financial market governance in the Mediterranean region.

Building on recent empirical literature on the relationship between financial development, financial governance, and economic growth, this paper empirically assesses the validity of the so‐called finance‐growth nexus for Mediterranean Partner countries.

The findings indicate that the current institutional set‐up renders an efficient allocation of savings impossible, and thus represents a strong binding constraint on economic growth. In this regard, it is found that adverse financial governance practices have substantially contributed to this outcome.

This paper argues for upgrading domestic regulatory frameworks before continuing a sequential integration and liberalisation process.

It is thought that this attempt is unique in explicitly formulating a comprehensive role for the Euro‐Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) in assisting MPCs on financial governance issues. In this respect, it identifies prevailing incentive schemes for regional actors and opportunities for the EU to actively support the implementation of a reform agenda for financial institutions in the EMP framework.

The paper presents how public‐private cooperation schemes can successfully assist in the implementation of contemporary urban development policies, focusing mainly on the guidelines set by the European Union as well as the cases of three Mediterranean countries: Italy, France and Greece.

The paper approaches the issue of private financing in urban development by analyzing the main advantages of public‐private partnerships, the terms under which these co operations can be successful, as well as the way in which some national authorities in the Euro‐Mediterranean area have attempted to implement PPPs.

Mediterranean countries are lacking relatively behind concerning the adoption of public – private partnerships for urban development projects. This paper states that public‐private financing schemes have the potential of becoming an important tool for promoting urban regeneration in combination with respecting the principle of sustainability.

Attempts to encourage public policy makers and local authorities in particular to undertake relevant actions in order to promote partnerships with private institutions in the field of urban development.

Provides information on how private financing of urban development projects is being adopted in Southern Europe, thus presenting the different approaches undertaken by each of the countries in question (Italy, France and Greece) in relation to their legislative and administrative and cultural background.

Compares Palestine and Cambodia with respect to the involvement of NGOs in generating sustainable development. Both countries have suffered war and both still struggle for a fragile peace; success appears to hinge on the international community’s ability to achieve economic development and real social and political improvements. Results can be achieved through: co‐operation between donor services and local authorities, using assistance to increase local entrepreneurship, economic independence and active participation; making formal agreements between NGO and local authorities as to duties and remit of the aid operations; establishment of a workable accountability system; formation of a structured co‐ordination framework; and using UN agencies more frequently and extensively.

The purpose of this paper is to outline how the EU figures out the importance of strengthening its relations with Egypt as one of the most strategic countries in the region to keep the union secured and stable. The paper also assesses to what extent the EU succeeds to promote democracy in Egypt.

The EU pursues its policy through a series of both bilateral and multilateral agreements with Egypt aiming at positioning their relations in a strategic context. The research adopted different approaches as descriptive and analytical ones.

Following the Arab uprisings, the EU was caught by surprise and announced a paradigm shift in its relations and introduced a set of policies to foster democracy promotion that witnessed some successes but with extremely modest results in some areas compared to the costs of the process. The EU succeeded in important reforms in trade liberalization while it did not bring clear changes in the political arena in Egypt.

The findings of this paper convey that the Arab uprisings were a wake-up call for the EU. It was the right time for the EU to conduct such a strategic and sincere reflection based on the role it wants to play in the changing region. In addition, findings prove that the EU’s response to revolutionary events has been weak and hesitant, and the EU has not an effective role in promoting democracy in Egypt.

This paper aims to present some challenging issues concerning urban space management in the Mediterranean region, with a special focus to sustainability.

It is structured around the outcomes of the SB05MED International Conference titled “Sustainable Construction: Action for Sustainability in the Mediterranean Region,” held in Athens in June 2005, which is the main subject of this special issue. It will present the main outcomes related to existing approaches of environmental quality in buildings as well as methodologies, policies and standards for environmental quality in buildings and cities. Furthermore, it will present future trends and explore the current situation of projects, systems and operations, as well as performance assessment tools and financial instruments and mechanisms towards sustainable construction in the Mediterranean region. Each major scientific topic is presented and analysed. Finally, a synthesis of outcomes is presented.

The paper demonstrates the links between developments in the field of sustainable building in the Mediterranean region and relates them with future developments and perspectives at a macro‐regional level.

This overview paper can be used as the starting point of future research as well as a reference paper.

Discusses the coming enlargement of the European Union by ten states, which also increases the population from 378 million to 483 million (if Bulgaria and Romania are also accepted in 2007). Notes that because of their membership, the new members will pay the price of reduced access to former trading partners and borders of new Member States will open up west and north, although some customs’ revenue will disappear there will be EU budget transfers to compensate.

The world economy is a network of individual states and regional groupings of countries which are interlinked by trade in cross‐border goods and services, movements of factors of production (labour and especially capital) and financial flows. The intensity of these international linkages has grown in absolute and relative terms (related to GDP) after World War II and especially in the 1990s. After the collapse of the communist systems and in view of a worldwide political trend towards deregulation and liberalisation, increasing globalisation has become a widely debated phenomenon. One difference between the 1990s and previous periods is the increasing internationalisation of production through networks of transnational corporations (TNCs).

The purpose of this article is to explore an energy strategy for the European Union (EU) that could integrate the tensions between geopolitics and the market in a coherent and consistent external EU energy policy.

The approach consists of combining the theoretical framework of international political economy and Europeanization to European energy corridors.

The article finds that most qualitative energy security scenarios can be conceived as applications of international political economy paradigms. Its main result is to conceptually develop a geo‐economic strategy consisting on the Europeanization of EU's external energy corridors along its own energy regulations and standards.

The article explores a distinct hybrid scenario, the Europeanization of energy corridors, which could be instrumental in overcoming the apparent dilemma between EU's market and geopolitical‐based scenarios.

The original contribution of the article lies in the application of international political economy and Europeanization theories to energy security scenarios, and the inclusion of governments' preferences in the process of hedging market and geopolitical scenarios.

This paper develops a simultaneous equations model to test the process of interaction between foreign direct investment (FDI), exports and economic growth in three Middle Eastern countries: Egypt, Jordan and Oman, and tests for any possible feedback effects. Most of the FDI in these countries flows from the European Union. The simultaneous equations model results suggest that higher rates of economic growth result in a greater inflow of foreign capital. The regression results also suggest that interest rate differentials exert a much stronger effect than economic growth on the attraction of foreign capital in the case of Egypt. However, this variable does not seem to play a significant role in the case of Oman. Moreover, the simultaneous equations model results suggest that there is a feedback effect in the relationship between economic growth and capital inflow in all sample countries. A greater inflow of foreign capital leads to growth in the exports of good and services. The expansion in exports leads to growth in gross national product that, in turn, encourages the attraction of more foreign capital.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding about how energy supply chains work to build resilience against exogenous security threats and thereafter what support mechanisms should be introduced or improved by the European Union.

Five case studies and data collection from multiple sources is used to understand what exogenous security threats could lead to the disruption of oil and gas flows to Europe, how energy companies, from a supply chain perspective, are working to manage these threats and finally, how the EU may coordinate the security of the energy sector in collaboration with supply chain companies.

Results show that today, oil and gas supply chains have in place a good combination of disruption strategies, including portfolio diversification, flexible contracts, transport capacity planning and safety stocks. The most relevant security threats the companies fear, include hijacking of vessels (sea piracy), but also terrorism, and wars. Finally, the study highlights that the European Union has built a comprehensive portfolio of strategies to deal with scarcity of oil and gas resources. However, these approaches are not often synchronized with supply chain strategies.

The paper provides guidance for supply chain managers dealing with critical suppliers located in conflict environments. The paper recommends that supply chain managers fine tune their strategies in coordination with governmental actions in foreign politics, dependence reduction and crisis management. This may be achieved by closer communication with governments and potentially through the creation of a pan-European sector alliance.

Previous research discusses the topic of supply chain resilience and supply chain risk management. However, none of these studies report on exogenous security threats and disruption strategies of oil and gas supply chains. At the same time, previous research lacks detailed studies describing the interaction between governments and energy supply chains.