Over the last decade, the deep transformations that swept through the wider Mediterranean region have risen new challenges that overlap with old crises. State fragility, conflicts, security threats and socio-economic inequalities have turned the area into one of the world’s most volatile regions, whose geo-strategic importance goes far beyond its geographical borders. Here, more than elsewhere, diverging interests of several regional and international actors are fueling rivalries and conflicts for power and control of energy resources, intensifying fragmentation and instability. Today, the Covid-19 pandemic and plummeting oil prices add new strains to this fluid geopolitical context where a new balance of power is hardly emerging. What are the prospects for regional stability and order? How do the interests and ambitions of the main regional players interact with those of external powers? What room for cooperation initiatives in the region?
