Ashtons speech in Cairo. Catherine Ashton has given a speech at the League of Arab States. Title:”A Commitment to Peace – the European Union and the Middle East” (available as pdf here). Key extracts:
The primary purpose of my visit is to show the continued importance that the European Union attaches to the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is a vital European interest and is central to the solution of other problems in the region. (…)
The parameters of a negotiated settlement are well known. A two-state solution with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security. Our aim is a viable State of Palestine in the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza strip, on the basis of the 1967 lines. (…)
Recent Israeli decisions to build new housing units in East Jerusalem have endangered and undermined the tentative agreement to begin proximity talks. The EU position on settlements is clear. Settlements are illegal, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible.
But there are many obstacles (to a solution). The decision to list cultural and religious sites based in the occupied Palestinian territory as Israeli is counter-productive. The blockade of Gaza is unacceptable. It has created enormous human suffering and greatly harms the potential to move forward. (…)
The Palestinians too of course have responsibilities. First however I want to commend President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad for showing us that they can build the institutions of a future Palestinian State. But the Palestinians must get their house in order. Continued Palestinian divisions do not serve their interests. The political and physical separation between Gaza and the West Bank is dangerous. Palestinian reconciliation is more crucial than ever. The PLO must take its responsibilities in this regard, and face the challenge of renewal and reform. (…)
Europe is also ready to take its responsibility. The European Union will continue to support Palestinian institution building. But this must not come at the expense of the peace process. Institution building must facilitate the peace process and not replace it. We are working in partnership with the Palestinian Authority to build the institutions they will need to have when the State is established.
EU should not only focus on Palestinian-Israeli conflict, says Emanuele Ottolenghi in the Wall Street Journal. It should upgrade relations with Israel and decouple the conflict from its relations with the region:
Europe’s insistence on linking stronger economic and political ties with Israel to a peace settlement is a direct consequence of a European article of foreign policy faith: That the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the region’s Gordian knot, and that Israel is largely to blame for the failure to reach a comprehensive solution. (…)
By prioritizing the Palestinian-Israeli dispute over other regional goals, the EU is allowing its interests to be at the mercy of the Palestinians’ intramural power contests and Israeli’s coalition politics, not to mention Arab tyrants and the greater radical Islam movement. (…)
With tunnel-vision for a Palestinian-Israeli solution, Europe is bowing to supposedly moderate Arab regimes that are recalcitrant about promoting democracy, strengthening civil society, fighting corruption, and improving governance. As they are no doubt telling Ms. Ashton during her first visit to the region, they are prepared to help in the quest for a negotiated Palestinian-Israel solution, but in exchange, Europe must forgo its demands for change inside their own societies. (…)
Europe can’t afford to delay addressing other pressing regional problems because of a stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement. Good governance and respect for human rights in the Maghreb or the Levant are not impeded by the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. Indeed, respectable leadership at home is something the EU should require of its Arab interlocutors in exchange for economic aid, direct investment, and political partnerships. (…)
Ms. Ashton can rectify the situation by recognizing that regional challenges are quite distinct from the peace process. She could also assert their urgency for many Middle Eastern regimes, and stress that a lack of progress on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process should not become an excuse for dawdling with advancement on other tracks. The EU should rebalance its priorities in the Middle East, and rate developments in other fields at least as high as progress between Israel and Palestine. (…)
Decoupling that conflict from other regional challenges does not mean relegating peacemaking to a secondary role; it means refusing to let vital European interests become hostage to it, and demanding that Arab regimes stop using the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a pretext for procrastination. It means recognizing that some regional challenges exist quite independently of Israel’s existence, and the non-existence of a Palestinian state.
Ashton in Lebanon today. The Daily Star has the program: Ashton will meet with President Michel Sleiman, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Foreign Minister Ali al-Shami.
End of Europe’s love affair with Obama. In an essay (here, pdf), the GMF’s Constanze Stelzenmüller analyses the Euro-American relationship. Her bottom line:
First, this president is an exceptionally gifted intellectual and politician, but he is (yes) human, and hence, fallible. Second, he is not just an American president, but first and foremost president of and for America. Third, Europe—in the aggregate as well as at member-state level—still appears to be mostly unprepared to partner with America in handling global challenges, or to do so on its own; worse, this inability seems to be not merely a question of capabilities, but of political will.
Ami don’t go home. Ivan Krastev thinks about what would happen if the US would withdraw from Europe — as demanded recently by Andrew Bacevich in a piece for Foreign Policy:
A radical American withdrawal from Europe (…) would have a de-stabilizing effect, as it can result in re-nationalization of the foreign and security policies of the EU member states. The sad reality today is that when it comes to Russia, Berlin and Paris prefer bilateral talks with Moscow, while Eastern Europe prefers to look to Washington, rather than Brussels. Secondly, you should not be Rumsfeld to believe that weakness is an invitation for aggression, so the U.S.’s withdrawal from Europe can change Russia’s strategic behavior on the continent and dramatically increase the risk of military confrontation in Europe’s periphery. The U.S.’s withdrawal will also increase the uncertainty in the EU-Turkey security dialogue. At the moment, Turkey is on its way to joining the EU, but her foreign policy is diverging from that of her European allies. The specter of multipolar Europe—with EU, Russia, and Turkey representing different interests—is more present than ever.
Don’t waste the chance of the EU’s diplomatic service, Tony Barber warns on his FT blog:
Much fuss has been made about the abilities, or lack of them, of Baroness Catherine Ashton, the EU’s new foreign poicy high representative. But in truth the problem goes deeper than that. It is about the redefinition of foreign policy in the modern world and the inter-institutional battles that break out as a consequence.
The EU’s most important policy priorities include areas such as climate change and energy security, which may not fall into traditional foreign policy categories but which require constant interaction with the rest of the world. The Commission regards these topics as its natural territory and is trying to keep them out of the clutches of the EU’s External Action Service. The member-states understandably take the view that a diplomatic service prevented from engaging with the external dimensions of internal EU policies would be hobbled from the start.
EU enlargement and EU neighbourhood policy are two more areas where the Commission is seeking to retain control. They involve countries whose stability is absolutely vital to the EU’s credibility as a foreign policy power (…) The EU needs to frame its relations with such places in a bigger context than the Commission is accustomed to do. For example, Turkey’s deepening engagement with its Arab neighbours, as well as with central Asian states, Russia and the South Caucasus, needs close attention. So, in the case of Ukraine, does the Crimean question, the future of Russia’s Black Sea fleet and other issues fundamental to the security of the Ukrainian state.
Meanwhile former British diplomat George Walden says in a Times op-ed that a EU diplomatic service simply cannot work as there is no clearly defined message — a consensus on EU foreign policy — that EU diplomats would be able to communicate to other countries.
Berlin’s view of Ashton. Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff (GMF) has recently talked with the Deputy Foreign Minister at the German Foreign Office, Werner Hoyer, about the current challenges for EU foreign policy. Listen to the podcast here.
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Read today on Global Europe: Problems with neighbours. The reconciliation process between Armenia and Turkey is in danger. By Amanda Paul, policy analyst at the European Policy Centre in Brussels.
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