The UfM and the Middle East ‘Peace Process’: An Unhappy Symbiosis

Abstract

This contribution explores differing theories on how the failure of the ‘peace process’ featured in the design and goals of the UfM, drawing on lessons from the period when the EMP was pursued in parallel with the peace process. In each case, institutional overlaps are identified, as well as commonalities in the approaches of the actors to both pursuits. Crucially, however, the persistence and intensification of the Arab–Israeli conflict, in combination with the shift from multilateralism to bilateralism embodied in the UfM, has politicized the latter at the expense of the functionalist aspirations of its architects.

Notes

¹ The term coined by Jospeh Nye and adopted by others, both academics and politicians, to contrast the EU approach to power projection with the military or ‘hard power’ available to the United States.

² As attested by officials participating in the seminar at which this and other papers were discussed in May 2010. As one said, official deliberations on the UfM and the MEPP are so interwoven as to be inseparable. If one tried to treat them as two separate clients for the purposes of billing for official time spent on each, the distinction drawn would be arbitrary or even false.

³ An opportunity Israel apparently considered jeopardized by inclusion of the Arab League as a participant.

⁴ For example, ahead of the Luxembourg summit in May 2005, Luxembourg's foreign minister Jean Asselborn declared that the EU was not just a source of funds but ought also to ‘transfer European values to Arab society to encourage democracy’ (Islam, 2005).

⁵ Substantiated in interviews conducted by the author with EU officials in 2005–06.

⁶ The role of Britain, and Blair in particular, is the subject of Hollis (2010).

⁷ http://eeas.europa.eu/occupied_palestinian_territory/ec_assistance/eu_support_pa_2000_2009_en.pdf (accessed 22 November 2010).

⁸ The problems connected with co-ownership are discussed by Johansson-Nogués (this collection).