THE MEDITERRANEAN AND LEGAL PLURALISM

Abstract

Engaged in the construction of the “Fortress Europe” – where fundamental values are forged, preserved, and armed – the European Union institutions and the European intelligentsias appear to ignore some ethnological and historical differences within the vast territories it covers.

Some attention has been devoted to the contrasts between Western European countries and Central/Eastern European ones. However, these have been reduced to the fact that the latter part of the continent has received a democratic system only three decades ago. This diagnosis is extremely superficial and could be challenged as an example of typical histoire événementielle (in this case the fall of the Soviet Union) which ignores la longue durée which is much more revealing.