L. D. HOVHANNISYAN Graduate student Faculty of World Politics, Lomonosov Moscow State University Keywords: Arab Spring, European Union, Mediterranean, free trade agreements The Arab Spring, which affected most of the countries of North Africa and the Middle East in 2011-2013, proved to be a serious challenge for the EU's foreign policy. Its leaders said that the decades-old system of supporting authoritarian leaders of Arab countries in exchange for stability in these States has proved ineffective. Therefore, the focus of the EU's Mediterranean strategy had to shift from security to promoting the democratization of the region. At the same time, it was emphasized that funding and support from Brussels will be linked to specific reforms in the partner countries. Guided by this principle, the European Commission has taken several important decisions, and in 2011, as part of trade and economic cooperation, Brussels invited four Arab countries-Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan-to conclude an agreement.- page 49 Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements. Considering these agreements in the context of a" revised " Mediterranean policy will help assess the EU's strategy in this area. WHY THE MEDITERRANEAN? The active integration of the Mediterranean direction into the sphere of foreign policy interests of the European Union began in the mid-1990s and was due to two interrelated reasons: strengthening security in the neighboring region and protecting economic interests. First of all, to ensure uninterrupted supply of energy resources, as well as to maintain access to markets for European goods. The process of cooperation between the EU member States and the Mediterranean countries was successfully launched in 1995 during the Barcelona Conference, which launched the so-called Barcelona Process, which aimed to create a Euro-Mediterranean partnership. Although the stated objective of the process was to democratize the Mediterranean region, in practice the emphasis was place ... Read more