| Transatlantic Convergence or Divergence? The EU Role in the Arab-Israeli Negotiating Process |
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Remarks by Jonathan Davidson
Emory University Conference on Europe, the United States, and the Middle East April 13, 2003 Let me begin by quoting one of the great sages of the Middle East: Of all the wars between Middle Eastern states and peoples, the Arab-Israel conflict has attracted most attention in the outside world, in part …because of interests only tenuously related to the issues and merits of the case. These outside concerns have prevented a clear resolution of the conflict by the victory of one side or the other. The struggle thus consisted…of a series of short, sharp wars, ended by international intervention, with at best tactical and never strategic victories. …[T]he [unintended] role of the international agencies was not the resolution but rather the conservation of conflict. [1] Everything I’m about to say should be tempered by that sobering reality. European Middle East policy is driven by our vital strategic interests in peace and stability. Geographical proximity plays its part. This tinder box is already in our neighborhood. And each enlargement of the EU—such as the Treaty of Accession that we’ll sign in Athens with 10 new member states, including two in the Mediterranean, three days from now—draws us ever closer to being next door neighbors. But we also have heartfelt concern about the risks of an even greater escalation of violence. Every violent incident gets big play on European TV screens in all our homes. And our policymakers and strategists constantly worry about the regional, and potentially global, consequences of a conflagration arising from further deterioration in security and stability. Like America, Europe fervently hopes that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein—for which the coalition deserves our heartfelt gratitude—will help to foster conditions for a resumption of the Middle East peace process to the west of Iraq, even those of our policymakers who didn’t necessarily buy into the view that the war would transform the regional landscape for the better. Let’s hope the skeptics are wrong. Even while parts of Europe found themselves at odds with the US over the approach to war in Iraq, we were working closely together across the Atlantic to pave the way for renewal of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Europe and the US now agree on the immediate release and implementation of the Quartet’s roadmap to a permanent status agreement between Israel and Palestine. Watch for this unveiling in the next few days or weeks, when Abu Mazen’s cabinet is confirmed by the PLC. European policy rests on two basic precepts [2]:
Our policy—though not necessarily our persona, as I’ll explain in a minute—dates back 20 years to the Venice European Summit Declaration, which recognized these twin principles and called for international efforts to assure both Israel's security and progress towards the political goal of Palestinian self-determination. EU and the Intifada With the breakdown of the Oslo process over the past 2½ years the EU has consciously and pro-actively established a more visible presence in the region, while maintaining the closest possible coordination with international partners, especially the United States. The EU’s more assertive role in the Middle East is driven partly out of concern at the potential consequences of increasing violence. And it’s partly a function of the EU’s growing ability to project itself on the world stage as a political, diplomatic, foreign policy and security entity. While European states individually have always had these capacities, at varying levels of presence on the world stage, for the Union as a whole this is a relatively new phenomenon. As we begin to find our feet and flex our muscles as a political union, it is natural enough to turn first to the unstable regions in our immediate neighborhood, as we have already done, for example, in the Balkans. In the Balkans we’ve assumed the lead role, with the support of the US. But the EU has no illusions that it can or should have the lead role in the Middle East. Only the US can lead the way to a settlement of the Middle East disputes. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer is the most recent visitor to the region to reaffirm this point explicitly. Indeed he reiterated this week in Israel not only that the EU respects the leading role of the US but that the EU actively wants the US to take the lead. As he put it, “Without US leadership no solution is possible.” What the EU can bring to the table, however, is a stronger role in partnership with the US and other international players than we have played in previous rounds of peacemaking. When carefully coordinated, the vast assets we can draw upon as a Union—diplomatic, political, economic and technical—can be and are being deployed much more purposefully and coherently, as a general contribution to peace and stability, and more specifically in an effort to revive negotiations between the parties. While the EU has no aspirations at all to displace the US as the leading player—on the contrary, as I said, our Union wants the US to resume its leadership role in Middle East peace—it’s particularly important to recognize that Europe’s new capacity to act as a Union in foreign and security matters, despite our failure to act together on Iraq, gives us a new standing to bring positive influence to bear on all the parties that some of our member states individually may not have had to the same extent in the past. One visible sign of this is the role HR Solana has carved as a player with access to all leaders in the region. This is not to say that his message is always welcome on all front door steps. If it were, by definition he wouldn’t be carrying a useful message. It does mean that the Union potentially has political standing that Europe has never before had at its disposal. The reality of the new Europe—the real new Europe—is that on some issues we can act more forcefully and constructively than the old Europe some observers associate with previous rounds of Middle East peace making. So as we launch a new round of Middle East peacemaking, as we all hope we are about to do, it’s very important that everyone recognize that Europe is a new player. Whatever past conceptions or misconceptions there may be about one-sidedness in previous Middle East peacemaking efforts, Europe now has new instruments and a new political persona to bring to bear. Attitudes about Europe’s role should not be conditioned by old perceptions. Secretary Powell clearly recognized this in deciding to work closely with the Ministerial Quartet a year ago. There are indeed aspects of the crisis which the EU is uniquely qualified to address. We have a substantial track record helping to build democratic, pluralist institutions, promoting stability and prosperity, both in individual nations and in regions characterized by weak or failed states—istarting at home after World War II. Fixing failed states is one of the things we do well. We have no hang-ups about nation-building. The EU has a particular aptitude and high comfort level in promoting regional reconciliation. More than ever before, we have a substantial contribution to make. Within the EU framework as a whole, the European Commission makes an important contribution, though I should make it clear that the Commission is not empowered to speak or act for the EU as a whole on Middle East policy [3]. EU-Israel Relations Europe’s lead role in helping to keep the PA afloat during the time Israel blocked the transfer of Palestinian revenues to the PA is well known, as is our leadership in contributing to and coordinating the international donor community in support of humanitarian relief and economic development in the Palestinian territories. What is less noted is the close stake the EU and Israel have in each others’ societies and economies. I was pleased to notice that Foreign Minister Shalom said this week that he intends to devote special attention to improving Israel’s relations with Europe. I hope Ambassador Eran may advise him that he will be pushing on an open door. Europe is strongly committed to Israel’s security for emotional, cultural and political reasons among others. We consistently denounce in unequivocal terms terrorist violence, and we mean it. At the same time we oppose certain policies of the present Government. While recognizing Israel’s security imperatives, we press strongly for the lifting of closures, free movement of people and goods when security considerations permit, an end to targeted killings and reversal of settlement policy. There is no difference in substance between Europe and the US on any of these issues, though I recognize Israel may have different perceptions of the way the transatlantic partners respectively convey these messages. The EU, whose core values include democracy, human rights and the rule of law, knows that Israel is the only fully developed pluralistic democracy in the region. And there are strong economic, scientific and technological ties between the EU and Israel, stronger than many people in the US realize, and much closer in many respects than those between Israel and the US, if only as a function of our geographical proximity. When the EU grows from 15 to 25 Member States, the importance of EU-Israel relations will grow still further. These relations are formalized in the EU-Israel Association Agreement that went into force in 2000 – among the closest contractual relationships the EU has with any country. But more important than the legal text, this agreement rests on very important mutual stakes that our societies and economies have in each other. EU-Israel Trade and Cultural Relations and Scientific and Technical Co-operation The EU is Israel’s major trading partner. Trade has flourished in the last decade, with EU imports from Israel roughly tripling. [4] Israel has taken part in the Euro-Mediterranean partnership since it was launched in 1995. It is prominent in a number of cultural programs under that framework [5]. Israel was the first non-EU country to be associated with the European Community’s Framework Programme for Research and Technical Development (RTD). Israel's special status is the result of its very high level of scientific competence and the dense network of longstanding relations in scientific and technical co-operation between Israel and the EU [6]. The structural ties between Israel and Europe are a more durable measure of our relations than the sometimes inflammatory rhetoric, though of course it’s the rhetoric which will always hit the headlines. Bush Administration Embraces European Involvement in Middle East Policy Likewise, the EU's more active role in Middle East peace complements the posture adopted by the US since the advent of the Bush Administration. From the outset, the Bush Administration declined to engage in the intense mediating role played by the Clinton Administration. This is a natural enough reaction to the aftermath of Camp David II and the subsequent Herculean but failed efforts to rescue an Israeli-Palestinian deal and the earlier failure to resuscitate the Syrian track at summit level. While the fundamentals of US policy towards the region haven't changed, the different tactics adopted by the US, starting with a measured review of policy toward the wider Middle East, have led the US to embrace the meaningful participation of the EU and other international partners in the search for peace in the Middle East. The Quartet is the most visible, but not the only, result of this posture. While all this creates scope for a more balanced transatlantic partnership in Middle East peace efforts than when the US is in the ring as the mediator, of course I do not pretend there are no problems. The different perceptions of our public opinion across the Atlantic towards the Middle East are well documented. The GMF/Chicago Council survey (German Marshall Fund/Chicago Council on Foreign Relations) last year highlighted the Middle East as the foreign policy issue on which public opinion in Europe and America most sharply diverges. On most other foreign policy issues – including even war with Iraq at the time the survey was conducted, opinion was more convergent. So understandably this public opinion divide is reflected to some degree in different public policy priorities across the Atlantic. We are all aware of the deep divide across the Atlantic on certain core issues and the difficulty in reconciling our different tactics and to some extent our policies. The differences between the EU and the US in recent months on the timing of release of the roadmap are the tip of the iceberg. No doubt when the roadmap is released and implementation begins these differences will come into even sharper focus. Indeed, we all know that the various parties are limbering up for a fight before the document is unveiled. So there’s no need to belabor any of that. We can read it in any number of op-ed pages and political statements in our various parliaments. No one needs reminding of divergence across the Atlantic and the risks of another bitter dispute in the coming months, despite the efforts that I’m sure leaders on both sides will make to repair transatlantic relations in the coming weeks and months. What’s more instructive, to my mind, is to find where our policies, methods and tactics actually converge and to deploy these points of convergence in the service of peace in the region. Task Force on Palestinian Reform One notable area of convergence is the work that’s been underway since last July between the US and the EU and other partners to help the process of Palestinian reform. Reform will work only if it’s homegrown, namely if there’s a will in Palestinian society and the body politic to embark on root and branch change. The evidence suggests there is such a will, but courageous reformers face enormous obstacles. What the EU and the US can do, and have indeed been doing since last summer, is to support Palestinian reform together. If done right, it makes all the difference. The Task Force on Palestinian Reform, under the Quartet, has been doing it right. The creation of the post of PM and the appointment of Abu Mazen is only the visible tip of this particular iceberg. Enormous efforts have been underway – largely unreported – to ensure favorable conditions for the reformers to prosper, the right kind of external pressure and guidance on specifics to help the Palestinians’ 100 day plan bear fruit and to build from there. Four intensive meetings of the Task Force, some with Israelis and Palestinians present, and virtually continuous efforts by their 7 support groups on the ground have helped create the best prospect we’ve seen for 2½ years to begin to rebuild confidence between the parties. One TF meeting was at the Dead Sea, an appropriate location, the State Department delegate told me, “because everything floats there but nothing survives.” Transparency and accountability have improved multifold in PA finances. Important constitutional and political reforms have been undertaken. Legislation to modernize commercial transactions is afoot. There’s much less progress in judicial reform. That’s one of the areas where the task force are holding the Palestinian reformers’ feet to the fire. On the crucial issue of security, we are all waiting to see the appointment of the new Interior Minister, and whether the new PA leadership can bite the bullet, so to speak, on bringing violence to an end. None of this means a breakthrough, yet. But there have been important steps to reform. Credit is due to the Palestinian reformers. But it’s also a practical result of close and intensive transatlantic cooperation and partnership. All this is a necessary—if not sufficient—component of helping Israeli and Palestinian leaders restore a constructive dialogue. Quartet and the Roadmap The Ministerial Quartet is a more visible manifestation of our partnership. It’s obviously not without its detractors in the US and the region. The Israeli Government is suspicious of the Quartet’s intentions. Palestinian leaders also criticize aspects of the roadmap. All that suggests we may be doing something right. Time will tell if the roadmap will work. The obstacles are well known and the op-ed columns recount in gory detail what calamities await the region if the Quartet’s plans go awry and yet another peace initiative stalls. Again it’s instructive to think about the positive contribution of the Quartet. First, much in the roadmap is not new. It’s a route to a destination defined by President Bush on June 24—a route to two states, living side by side in peace and security—with a tight timetable, arriving by 2005 at a permanent settlement of the dispute. We all agree on the destination. We agree across the Atlantic on the timetable. It was President Bush who set the target date, and the Europeans heartily applauded. Since many months have elapsed before the roadmap can even be released, and everyone’s aware of the yawning gap in mutual confidence between the parties, no one will be surprised if this ambitious timetable for completion slips. But we will take a huge step together in the right direction just by launching the roadmap. If President Bush means what he said in Northern Ireland last week, that he will put as much energy into Middle East Peace as Tony Blair put into Northern Ireland peace, then the prospects for progress on the ground, and transatlantic partnership, are encouraging. The elements of the roadmap are largely beyond dispute. They were laid out in the Mitchell Plan and the Tenet workplan, both of which were accepted by the parties. The essential formula for a two state solution is not in dispute across the Atlantic and is largely accepted by most of the parties in the region, apart from extremists on both sides. The devil of course is in the details. And behind the details lies the collapse of confidence between the parties, the understandable fears they have that their own vital interests are at stake and perhaps directly threatened. We are aware of these fears and will fully respect them in launching the roadmap and its accompanying monitoring mechanism. In such a climate, there’s little the parties can agree on at the outset, and indeed it’s quite understandable that both parties will have very different interpretations of the roadmap when it’s unveiled. As in the case of Palestinian reform, the international community can make an enormous impact for good by working together to reassure the parties that the map is the right way out of the maelstrom and towards a permanent solution of the dispute. In the last analysis none of this will happen absent the political will. At the same time, transatlantic cooperation in the context of the Quartet can make the critical difference if the political will is there and the conditions are ripe for movement towards negotiations and peace. Conclusion To sum up, in the midst of the worst transatlantic rift in 50 years, I'm not suggesting that transatlantic relations are a bed of roses. There's no denying the well known differences across the Atlantic not only over Iraq but also in our respective approaches to Middle East peace. Nor am I suggesting that a new dawn is about to break either in Middle East peace or across the Atlantic. Plenty can still go wrong, in both arenas. What I am suggesting simply is that it's wrong to overlook the considerable—if less reported—areas of convergence. We have the same objectives for peace. We worked closely together to produce the roadmap. We will work closely together in helping the parties implement it. We will work together in monitoring performance, not to “impose” a settlement, but to help the parties bridge otherwise unbridgeable gaps in confidence and mutual understanding. There will continue to be transatlantic discord on the Middle East, and the political calendar won't help—it never does. But I do believe that the excellent track record of transatlantic cooperation over the past 9 months in the task force on Palestinian reform, and over the past 12 months in the Ministerial Quartet, could set the stage for continued transatlantic cooperation in Middle East peace if the political will is there across the Atlantic and in the region. For the last word let’s go back to the great sage, Bernard Lewis, writing in 1995: They alone—the peoples and governments of the Middle East—can decide whether and how to use this window of opportunity while, in an interval of their troubled modern history, it remains open[7]. [1] Lewis, Bernard. The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years. New York: Simon and Schuster,1995. [2] The European Union recognizes Israel's irrevocable right to live in peace and security within internationally recognized borders. At the same time it recognizes the need for the establishment of a democratic, viable and peaceful sovereign Palestinian State on the basis of the 1967 borders, with the possibility of minor adjustments through land swaps, Jerusalem as a shared capital and a just and acceptable solution to refugee issue. In this respect the EU has welcomed President Bush' speech of 24 June 2002. However, the peace process and the stability of the region cannot be hostage to terrorism and violence. The EU strongly condemns all terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and urges the Palestinian Authority to do everything in its power to prevent these. At the same time, the EU continues to call on Israel to withdraw its military forces and stop extra-judicial killings, to lift the closures and all restrictions imposed on the Palestinian people, and to freeze settlement activities. More than ever the EU sees a need to address simultaneously political, economic/humanitarian and security issues. While reform is undoubtedly an important contribution to the peace process it cannot be regarded as condition for moving on politically. Reform and institution-building are a Palestinian enterprise and must come from within. Progress can only be achieved provided the Palestinians can be confident that their institution-building efforts will lead to a viable and functioning state based on democratic principles. The EU will continue to work with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian society as well as with international partners to promote a resolution to the conflict based on tolerance, respect of democracy and human rights. [3] The European Commission fully supports the EU's position in the Middle East Peace Process in various ways:
In 1990 (EUR 3,626 million) approximately tripled in 2001 (EUR 9,568 million) as well as EU exports to Israel from 1990 (EUR 5,456 million) to 2001 (EUR 14,449 million). Total trade has reached EUR 24 billion (including diamonds) in 2001. It occupies rank number 1 in Israel's imports and rank number 2 in its exports. Israel is the EU’s 18th largest export market, and occupies rank number 25 in the EU's imports. In 2001, there was however negative growth in bilateral trade. This is in sharp contrast to earlier years. It is due in a large part to a restructuring in diamond trade which represents around 20-25% of EU-Israel Trade and to a dramatic reduction in trade in high tech products, the global economic slowdown, a weaker Shekel and a decline of demand. Agricultural products account for a significant proportion (8.6%) of the Community’s total imports from Israel, and 2.6% of its total exports there. In 2001, the Community imported agricultural products from Israel for a value of over EUR 770 million and exported EUR 342 million worth of agricultural goods. Under the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement, the two sides granted each other significant trade concessions for certain agricultural products, consisting of tariff reductions or elimination. Article 14 of the Agreement provides for ongoing discussions with a view to the further reciprocal liberalization of agricultural trade. EU-Israeli trade flows (excluding diamonds):
(Source: Israeli Bureau of Statistics) The participation of Israel in the MEDA program is restricted only to regional co-operation activities and is not eligible for EU funded bilateral co-operation programs as a result of Israel’s high GNP level per inhabitant. However, the EU does provide financial support to organizations under some regional programs, such as the human rights (EUR 4 million from 1999 to 2001) and in the promotion of peace (Partnership for Peace projects). In the framework of MEDA regional[6] co-operation, Israeli Civil Society is participating in the following programs: Euromed Audiovisual (local/regional cultural activities), Euromed Heritage (aim to preserve and develop the EURO-Mediterranean cultural heritage participation of Israeli organizations) and Euromed Jeunesse (aim to facilitate the integration of young people into social and professional life and to stimulate the democratization of the civil society of the Mediterranean partners). Israel first entered the Fourth Framework Programme in August 1996. On 8 March 1999, the "Second Agreement for Scientific and Technical Co-operation between the European Community and Israel" came into force. This agreement fully associated Israel with the 5th Framework Programme for Community RTD (1999-2002). Israel has officially requested to the Commission its association to the 6th Framework Programme for RTD activities (FP6 2003-2006) on March 2002. In November 2002, EU Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin hosted a conference in Brussels to launch the EU's FP6, worth EUR 17.5 billion in order to discuss how to turn its program into a driving force for growth and competitiveness. FP6 is a key part of the EU's strategy to create a true European Research Area, an Internal Market for science and knowledge. FP6 is set to play an instrumental part in the Barcelona European Council's target to raise average EU research spending to 3% of European GDP |
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