EU more vocal in its criticism of Israel

Cancelled meetings between EU officials and the Israeli prime minister and minister of foreign affairs signify an impasse in the country’s relations with the EU.

The Israeli minister of foreign affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, had come to Brussels to finally discuss closer political and economic cooperation between Israel and the EU. For more than a year, since the Gaza war, little progress has been made in this department. This time, merely discussing the matter proved a bridge too far. The meeting planned for Tuesday was cancelled.

The cancellation follows in the wake of a falling out between Israel and the US administration, which felt snubbed after Israel announced during a visit by the American vice president, Joe Biden, that it would be constructing 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem, an area claimed by the Palestinians. David Axelrod, a political advisor to the American president, Barack Obama, called this move “an insult”.

The official reason, as far as the Europeans were concerned, was that the high representative for European foreign policy, Catherine Ashton, had visited the Middle East only a week before. Everything there was to say had already been said, a spokesperson claimed. The Israelis also realised this would be a bad time to meet. It would only have served to highlight the poor relations of the moment, and no decision regarding more intensive collaboration would have materialised.

The EU has long demanded that Israel stop building and expanding its settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. Now that tensions have arisen between Israel and the US over the same issue, European politicians are becoming ever more vocal in their opinion.

Last week, the Finnish minister of foreign affairs, Alexander Stubb, called the Israeli announcement that it would further expand its settlements “completely, utterly unacceptable”.

In Israel, Ashton’s visit to Gaza last week also provoked tensions. The speeches she gave while visiting the Middle-East and the Op-Ed piece she published in Monday’s International Herald Tribune were both read carefully by the Israelis. She did mention a “two-state solution”. But why did she fail to say this solution should be reached through negotiations?

After the news that Tuesday’s EU meeting with Israel would not be taking place, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, cancelled his own visit to Brussels, which had been scheduled for this week. He had planned to meet with the chair of the European Council of government leaders, Herman Van Rompuy. An unforeseen scheduling conflict with Netanyahu’s visit to US president, Barack Obama, forced him to call it off, the Israelis said.

EU-ministers of foreign affairs, who had their monthly meeting in Brussels last Monday, said they understood. The EU, a large donor of development aid, is still looking to define its political role in solving the problems troubling the Middle-East. “We are the most important payer in the Middle East,” Corina Cretu, a Romanian social-democratic member of the European parliament, said on Monday. “But we certainly aren’t the most important player.”

The EU is part of the so-called Quartet on the Middle East, a joint effort by the US, Russia, the EU and the UN to mediate in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Former British prime minister, Tony Blair, is the special envoy of this Quartet. In his opinion European ministers’ main role should be supporting him in his attempts to build up the economy and institutions in the Palestinian territories. This would allow them to expand their influence in the Middle-East “from the bottom up”, where Blair believes the real progress is taking place.

On Monday, the Israeli minister Lieberman did have five separate meetings with European ministers of foreign affairs who happened to be in Brussels anyway. Their message was that the Israelis and Palestinians had to return to the negotiating table quickly. After meeting with Lieberman, the Dutch minister of foreign affairs, Maxime Verhagen, said his Israeli counterpart had been “sceptical” over the “possible results” such talks could have.

Also on Monday, the European ministers collectively expressed their satisfaction over the visit of Catherine Ashton to the Middle East. Ashton had drawn a lot of criticism in the past over the foreign excursions she had -or had not- made at the wrong moment, according to EU ministers. Now, they praised her for going on such a major, politically sensitive journey so quickly after assuming office.

After the EU ministers’ meeting, Ashton said the EU would do as Blair had suggested. The Palestinians would be getting more aid to allow them to assume responsibility for their own governance and safety.