After its ignoble imperial exit in the middle of the twentieth century, Europe is ready to step back into the Middle East. The Arab Spring caught everyone napping — but since the unthinkable happened in Egypt, policymakers in the West have been working overtime to win the support and attempt to influence new democratic actors. And while the U.S. is scaling down its involvement in the region, Europe is ramping it up.

This week the Brookings Institution held a Q & A session in Washington with Baroness Catherine Ashton, European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Fresh from a trip to Juba, the capital of newly born South Sudan, and a visit to the rebel capital of Benghazi in Libya before that, she spoke on the topic of “The European Union Response to the Arab Spring.”

Much as one would expect from a high ranking bureaucrat, the Baroness made a series of platitudinous, well prepared statements responding to provocative questions from the audience. One Saudi gentleman probed Europe’s continued relationship, with oil flowing out and expensive weaponry flowing in, with despotic Middle Eastern monarchies that show “open contempt for their people” such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia – all despite gushing praise for the popular energy and democratic demands of the Arab Street.

To this accusation of hypocrisy Ashton swiftly responded that, in dealing with unsavory states, the EU faces a simple choice “between isolation and engagement,” the former being the only constructive option if wayward regimes are to be taught the error of their ways. That “isolation” – in other words, a refusal to engage with these regimes economically or strategically – might be a greater spur to reform than a smooth trade in oil and arms, especially in countries like Saudi Arabia whose wealth rests on oil exports and whose totalitarian governance depends on a well-equipped security apparatus, was not considered. Europe shall not forsake its lucrative alliances any time soon, for the sake of “engagement.”

Ashton’s favorite platitude that evening was “neighborhood.” North Africa and the wider Middle East may not be part of Europe – geographically, culturally or politically – but it is part of Europe’s “wider neighborhood,” and it follows that Europe has both an interest in and responsibility over internal Arab affairs. One can’t help but be reminded of the Reaganite invocation of Latin America as the U.S.A.’s “backyard,” belying a well-developed interventionist doctrine among foreign policy circles that inspired America’s covert support for anti-communist militias in Nicaragua, El Salvador and elsewhere, with heavily violent and often un-democratic consequences.

Ashton’s “neighborhood” rhetoric can be read, a little provocatively perhaps, as a cuddlier European translation of the “backyard” statement – a version that suggests, rather than a permanent hawkish presence in its southerly adjunct, a benign relationship founded on neighborly values such as reciprocity, mutual aid and warm fellow-feeling. Equally neighborly commonplaces like guarded privacy, mutual suspicion and social one-upmanship are presumably not implied.

Whatever its neighborly feelings, Europe is clearly determined to involve itself, not only with flows of trade and migration between itself and North Africa and the Middle East, but also with the political and social make-up of the region. A recurring theme for Ashton was Europe’s efforts to “reach out to and help foster civil society” in the various nations (presumably omitting Saudi Arabia and Bahrain), and consciously aid the development of independent judiciaries, sturdy political opposition groups, channels of popular engagement, and all else that constitutes what Ashton labeled “deep democracy.”

America, however, cannot make this “neighborhood” justification for any future influence in the Middle East and North Africa; and with the conflict in Libya far from won, and a continued involvement in Iraq, its presence is ongoing. It is left to make claims over national security and appeals to humanitarian conscience. Large question marks hover over both.