II. EUROPE'S PRESENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
People often lament "the absence of Europe" in Middle East affairs. Put that way, their complaint is a poor reflection of a paradoxical reality. Europe is the Middle East's leading economic partner, importing over 50% of its oil from that part of the world; accounts for 35% of Israel's foreign trade; and covers most of the Palestinian government's financial needs. Europe is an economic and financial powerhouse in the region in every way, but surprisingly weak politically. Several reasons account for that.
First, it took a long time for Europe to develop the political institutions necessary to formulate and implement a foreign policy. The Lisbon Treaty will help fill that gap when it enters into force. The High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy will have the economic and financial clout to make Europe's voice heard.
The second cause of the European Union's political weakness is divisions between Europeans, which were never more openly expressed as during the US intervention in Iraq. France, Germany and Belgium sharply condemned the invasion, while central Europe's new democracies approved it and Great Britain participated militarily. The Iraq episode showed that the Europeans' divisions had less to do with conflicting analyses of the Middle East's problems that with the closeness of their ties with the United States.
The third cause is that, as a community, Europe has no military teeth to back up its policy on the ground. France, Italy, Great Britain and, more recently, Germany have the means but they cannot compare with those of the United States. Europe as an entity is militarily non-existent.
Lastly, neither the United States nor Israel has ever agreed to let Europe participate in talks between Tel Aviv and the Palestinians, which lie at the heart of the region's political problems.
In those conditions, Europe's involvement in the Middle East has taken two forms. First, on several occasions it has adopted positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are often at odds with United States policy.
Second, in the belief that forging economic ties would bring Europe and the Arab world closer together, it has set up and funded cooperation structures with countries south of the Mediterranean.
A. EUROPE AND THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT
The idea of a Euro-Arab dialogue dates back to the Arab States' reaction to the Six Day War. Using oil as a weapon, they forced Europe to take a position on the Arab-Israeli conflict and open up what everybody agreed to call the "Euro-Arab dialogue". It was a relationship between groups, not States, which allowed the Arab League in Dublin in 1975 to request that the PLO be associated.
Of course, the groups had different priorities. The Arabs wanted the Europeans to make a stronger commitment to Palestinian rights whereas the Europeans wanted to ensure a steady supply of oil.
1. The Venice Declaration
The 1980 Venice Declaration was an essential step in the construction of a common European position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It stated that "the Palestinian problem, which is not simply one of refugees. The Palestinian people, which is conscious of existing as such, must be placed in a position, by an appropriate process defined within the framework of the comprehensive peace settlement, to exercise fully its right to self-determination." The text had a considerable impact. US officials did not hide their hostility. Israel called it lop-sidedly pro-Arab. Venice was likened to Munich and Israel to Czechoslovakia. The Jewish State accused Europe of raising an "organization of murderers"--the PLO--to the rank of peace negotiators.
Oil prices soared after the Iranian Revolution swept Ayatollah Khomeini to power, putting the Venice Declaration and the Euro-Arab dialogue on hold.
The European countries registered no significant reaction to Israel's invasion of Lebanon, the first Intifada in 1987 or the Palestinian National Council's proclamation of a Palestinian State on November 15, 1988. The 1991 Gulf War underscored their military weakness. They would not have been able to restore Kuwait's sovereignty alone. That is one reason why the United States left Europe out of the ensuing Arab-Israeli peace process.
The 1991 Madrid peace conference opened without European participation. The talks quickly moved to Washington on account of deep divisions between the Palestinian and Israeli delegations. In September 1992 PLO officials and close associates of Shimon Peres began talking to each other in Oslo. The meetings were a Norwegian, not a European, diplomatic initiative. In April 1994 and June 1995 the European Community backed the peace process but limited its action to the economic level.
In 1996 the Union named a special envoy to Palestine , Spanish ambassador Miguel-Angel Moratinos. The decision was made in the framework of the European Common Foreign and Security Policy (ECFSP).
In February 1997 the 15-member European Union and the PLO signed an interim association accord , which formalized the Union's financial commitment to the Palestinian Authority.
2. The Berlin Declaration
In March 1999 the Berlin Declaration picked up where the Venice Declaration left off but in clearer, more straightforward language. It "reaffirms the continuing and unqualified Palestinian right to self-determination including the option of a state and looks forward to the early fulfillment of this right." Nevertheless, the European Union met Israel's request to postpone recognition of a Palestinian State. Meanwhile, the same year the 15 Member States pursued their economic cooperation with the region by approving the 10 th convention between the Union and UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Work Agency), which implements the UN program to help Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
The United States invasion of Iraq in March 2003 divided Europeans: France, Germany and Belgium opposed the intervention, but the British prime minister and the new democracies in the East supported it. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld added fuel to the fire by making a distinction between "old" and "new" Europe. The European countries split into two camps depending on their support or opposition to the policy of the United States and, consequently, Israel.
Hamas's unquestionable victory in the January 2006 legislative elections placed the European Union's 25 Member States on the horns of a dilemma: either recognize the results of an election they encouraged and monitored (900 international observers attested that they were free and fair), in other words acknowledge the victory of Hamas, which they put on the list of terrorist organizations in December 2001, or ignore the results, contradicting the democratic principles they affirm and seek to promote.
The choice became tougher in July and August 2006 when Israel invaded Lebanon as part of a war against "Islamist terrorist organizations". On August 1, 2006 the European Union's 25 foreign affairs ministers could not conceal their disagreements and failed to call for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, underscoring their inability to agree on a common foreign policy.
B. TRANS-MEDITERRANEAN COOPERATION
From the 1990s to 2003 several initiatives were floated to try and forge closer ties between countries on both sides of the Mediterranean.
In 1990 a " 5 + 5 dialogue " took place after foreign affairs ministers met in Rome. The aim was to launch a regional cooperation process in the western Mediterranean between Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and Malta on the northern side and the Arab Maghreb Union's five countries on the southern side. After the first two meetings (Rome in 1990 and Algiers in 1991) the Member States agreed on an ambitious investment program but events relating to Algeria's legislative elections and suspicion of Libya's involvement in the Lockerbie bombing froze the dialogue for 10 years (1991-2001).
In November 1995 the Euro-Mediterranean partnership project was revived in Barcelona. Known as the " Barcelona process " , it associated the 15 Member States the European Union had at the time with partners on the Mediterranean's southern and eastern rim. The goal was to set up a free-trade zone, boost financial aid and increase technical and administrative assistance in order to establish an "area of shared prosperity". The partnership was based on foreign policy, security, economic, financial, social, cultural and human foundations. The European Union signed bilateral and asymmetrical trade accords with each Mediterranean country, first in 1995 with Tunisia and Israel, which absorb nearly 50% of its exports in the Mediterranean basin, then with Morocco (1995), the Palestinian Authority (1996) and the other Arab countries.
But the Barcelona process gradually got bogged down. The November 2000 Marseille meeting revealed how hard it would be for the European Union to set up coherent economic aid programs when Arab governments were reluctant to make difficult economic changes and criticized it for dodging thorny political issues by focusing on the partnership's economic dimension. The Europeans recalled that the Barcelona process and the Middle East peace process were meant to complement rather than compete with one another. For the Arab partners, solving the Palestinian problem was the sine qua non for closer ties with the West.
In 2003 the European Commission proposed a new concept, " neighborhood" , defined in the following manner: "the European Union strives to create a space of prosperity and good neighborliness, a circle of friends, characterized by close and peaceful relations based on cooperation." Officially, the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) does not replace but strengthens the Barcelona process.
President Sarkozy tried to breathe new life into the moribund Euro-Arab dialogue by setting up the "Union for the Mediterranean", which would have extended and renewed the Barcelona process.
Major projects included a clean-up of the Mediterranean, sea lanes, roads, civil protection, solar energy, university education, research and business development. The main stumbling block in setting up the projects' management structures was the Arab League's insistence on participating at every consultation and decision-making level. The Arab States did not want to face the European Union without a common line, which would have thrown the dialogue off balance. Meanwhile, Israel objected to the Arab League's participation.
A list of specific actions replaced the initial integration concept. The policy, which emerged during the European Union's eastward expansion, failed to win support from the countries south of the Mediterranean, which wanted a clearer political commitment from the Union.
President Sarkozy thought he could avoid a stalemate by emphasizing specific projects. He was wrong. To overcome the deadlock at the Marseille meeting it would have been necessary to set up pointlessly cumbersome structures and five deputy secretary-general posts, including one for Israel, and to allow the Arab League to take part in every meeting. In addition, the secretary-general's post was not filled. It was intended for Tunisia, but that country declined when the Union rejected its request to move the headquarters to Tunis and kept it in Barcelona instead.
The Union for the Mediterranean has been dormant since the Gaza tragedy in 2008. Arab governments accuse Europe of buying themselves a good conscience by proposing development projects because it lacks the courage to take a clear stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The planned initiatives are on hold. The UFM is not dead and the stalemate does not spell the end of Euro-Mediterranean projects, but there is a palpable sense of unease. The deterioration of the Israeli-Palestinian situation prevents the Arab governments from persevering because it would put them at odds with their public opinion.
On the sidelines of trans-Mediterranean cooperation, the Union and Israel have started talks on liberalizing services and air links between them and recently concluded talks on farm produce, fishing and processed agricultural products. In late 2007 the Israeli government asked the European Union to recognize a "special status" in the framework of the European Neighbor Policy. Israel would like to participate in several community policies and programs to strengthen technological and trade cooperation, as well as in Council meetings on the economy, environment, energy and security. Despite the parliament's opposition, the association council's eighth meeting, which took place on June 16, 2008 in the framework of the 1995 association accord, approved Israel's request to beef up its partnership with Europe but its entry into force was delayed after Israel's dramatic invasion of Gaza.
The European Union's foreign policy basically amounts to checkbook diplomacy. It is the Palestinian territories' main financial backer. In 2005 its total aid stood at €280 million, or over €500 million if the various Member States' bilateral assistance is taken into account. In September 2005, after Israel's unilateral pullout from Gaza, the European Commission granted €60 million in aid, most of it for rebuilding infrastructure, improving water supplies, upgrading power grids and repairing roads. In 2007 European Union aid to the Palestinian territories stood at €561 million (nearly a billion euros if bilateral assistance is added) and €493 million in 2008. In June 2009 the Commission earmarked €238 million euros to fund two important mechanisms. The first involves the EUBAN-Rafah mission, which was initially intended to ensure security at the Rafah checkpoint on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Israeli aircraft destroyed the mission's facilities and its staff is currently in Ashkelon. The rapporteurs met its officials, who are still waiting. The second is the EUPOL COPPS mission set up in late 2005 to train the Palestinian Authority police. In 2003 both missions were put under the responsibility of the European Union's special envoy to the Middle East, Marc Otte, who replaced Miguel Angel Moratinos and whom the rapporteurs met.
In conclusion, the Europeans will find interlocutors willing to talk to them as long as they limit their ambitions to large amounts of financial aid. But if they are more demanding about receiving political concessions in return, they will meet with a blunt refusal. The reason is simple: why would Arabs, Iranians or Israelis deal with the European Union if its political line is unclear and tangled in the contradictions of 27 national agendas?