THE INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC ALLIANCES BETWEEN EUROPEAN FIRMS AND THE FIRMS OF MEDITERRANEAN PARTNER COUNTRIES. (CONCEPTUAL PAPER)

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to present the result of the developing research on the trend of co-operations between European firms and firms of Mediterranean Partner Countries (Algeria Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey), from 2004 to 2008. The firms form alliances, as international strategy, if the environment and rules support their cooperation. When the economy of the country of partner is not stable, firms prefer equity alliances. The assumption is that the market integration process increases the collaborations between the firms of involved countries. The trend of flows of direct investment, in which the international strategic alliances are accounted, supports the assumption. The research question is: ‘Is the Barcellona (1995) process increasing the formation of international strategic alliances between European firms and firms of Mediterranean Partner Countries?’. The research is an exploratory study, which analyzes data of the annual reports of the observatory of European Commission (MIPO) of the agency (ANIMA) created by European Commission to support the cooperation between countries. The data-set is the collection of equity international strategic alliances between European
firms and firms of Mediterranean Partner Countries, through manual cross checks of the list of flows of direct investment in Mediterranean Partner Countries, from 2004 to 2008. The statistical analysis is descriptive and it is composed by a comparison of the equity international strategic alliances (EISA) with the risk rank of countries, and by the breakdown of trends of EISAs in every MPC with the year of agreements and the value of funds received by European Commission. The statistical analyses show that EISA from European countries in MPCs are not influenced in a strong way by the risk of the MPCs. In Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia and Israel the EISAs are increasing. Further evidence is still to be obtained in the next steps of analysis. The implications of results of this study suggest topics of research that should be more inquired in literature. The entrepreneurs will be informed on the characteristics of investments in Euro Mediterranean area, thus they will take choices in the future on their business.
This paper contributes to develop and to understand the trends and changes of dialogue between European and Mediterranean firms in Barcellona (1995) process. The institutions will look at the work to understand the effects of their actions on enterprises and which area they have to reinforce. The entrepreneurs and management involved in an internationalization process valuating the opportunity of forming EISA.

KEY WORDS equity alliances | international strategies | Euro-Mediterranean
cooperation | internationalization process | European firms