What Can Pro-Democracy Activists in Arab Countries Expect from the European Union? Lessons from the Union's Relations with Israel

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the European Union's (EU) approach to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, showing that there is a wide gap between its normative opposition to the occupation, Israel's expanding settlement project, and the EU's foreign trade policy. Our argument is not only that there is no evidence of norm diffusion from the EU to Israel, but that within the EU itself there is no diffusion from the normative political stance to the EU's economic interests. The Israeli case suggests that the pro-democracy activists of Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria should be aware that the trade interests of the EU Member States will ultimately trump the EU's political declarations.

Keywords:

• EU Foreign and Security Policy
• EU–Israeli Relations
• Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
• Middle East Peace Process
• Normative Power Europe

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Guy Klein and Hila Zahavi for research assistance. The authors appear in alphabetical order and acknowledge equal contribution.

Notes

1. François Duchêne, “The European Community and the Uncertainties of Interdependence,” in Max Kohnstamm and Wolfgang Hager, ed., A Nations Writ Large? Foreign Policy Problems before the European Community, (London: Macmillan, 1973), 1–21.

2. Ian Manners, “Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?” Journal of Common Market Studies 40(2): 235–58 (2002).

3. The idea of normative power in the international sphere was not new; indeed, as Manner's himself pointed out, it was informed by Edward Hallett Carr, who drew the distinction between economic power, military power and power over opinion. Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919–1939: An Introduction to Study of International Relations, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1962); see also Duchêne, “The European Community and the Uncertainties of Interdependence”; Johan Galtung, The European Community: A Superpower in the Making? (London: Allen & Unwin, 1973).

4. The idea also followed Joseph Nye's notion of soft power, which (in contrast to Duchêne's concept of civilian power) hinges on the separation of the normative from the economic dimension. Joseph Samuel Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1991); Joseph Samuel Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004); Joseph Samuel Nye and Robert Keohane, Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972).

5. Manners, “Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?,” 239, 241.

6. Ibid.; Ian Manners, “The Normative Ethics of the European Union.” International Affairs 81(1): 65–80 (2008); Sibylle Sheipers and Daniela Sicurelli, “Normative Power Europe: A Credible Utopia?” Journal of Common Market Studies 45(2): 435–57 (2007); Richard Youngs, “Normative Dynamics and Strategic Interests in the EU's External Identity.” Journal of Common Market Studies 42(2): 415–435 (2004). See also Karen E. Smith, “Beyond the Civilian Power EU Debate.” Poltique Europeénne 17(1): 63–82 (2005).

7. Simon Lightfoot and Jon Burchell, “The European Union and the World Summit on Sustainable Development: Normative Power Europe in Action?” Journal of Common Market Studies 43(1): 75–95 (2005); Elisabeth Johansson-Nogues, “The Non (Normative) Power EU and the European Neighborhood Policy: An Exceptional Policy for an Exceptional Actor?” European Political Economic Review 7: 181–94 (2007); Michelle Pace, “The Construction of EU Normative Power.” Journal of Common Market Studies 45(5): 1041–1064 (2007); Michelle Pace, “Paradoxes and Contradictions in EU Democracy Promotion in the Mediterranean: Limits of EU Normative Power.” Democratization 16(1): 39–58 (2009); Peter Seeberg, “The EU as a Realist Actor in Normative Clothes: EU Democracy Promotion in Lebanon and the European Neighbourhood Policy.” Democratization 16(1): 81–99 (2009).

8. Steve Wood, “The European Union: A Normative or Normal Power?” European Foreign Affairs Review 14(1): 113–128 (2009); Hubert Zimmerman, “How the EU Negotiates Trade and Democracy: The Cases of China's Accession to the WTO and Doha Round.” European Foreign Affairs Review 13( 2): 255–280 (2008).

9. Klaus Brummer, “Imposing Sanctions: The Not So Normative Power Europe.” European Foreign Affairs Review 14(2): 191–207 (2009).

10. Tomos Powel Brieg, “A Clash of Norms: Normative Power and EU Democracy Promotion in Tunisia.” Democratization 16(1): 193–213 (2009).

11. George Joffé, “The EU, Democracy and Counter-Terrorism in the Maghreb.” Journal of Common Market Studies 46(1): 147–71 (2008).

12. Gergana Noutcheva, “Fake, Impartial and Imposed Compliance: The Limits of the EU's Normative Power in the Western Balkans.” Journal of European Public Policy 16(7): 1065–84 (2009); Asle Toje, “The Consensus-Expectations Gap: Explaining Europe's Ineffective Foreign Policy.” Security Dialogue 31(1): 121–41 (2008); Pace, “Paradoxes and Contradictions in EU Democracy Promotion in the Mediterranean: Limits of EU Normative Power”; Alexander Warkotsch, “Non-Compliance and Instrumental Variation in EU Democracy Promotion.” Journal of European Public Policy 15(2): 227–48 (2008).

13. Ibid.

14. Pace, “The Construction of EU Normative Power.”

15. Nathalie Tocci “The Widening Gap between Rhetoric and Reality in EU Policy towards the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict” (Working Document #217, The Centre for European Policy Studies, 2005); Nathalie Tocci, “Firm in Rhetoric, Compromising in Reality: The EU in the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict.” Ethnopolitics 8(3): 387–401 (2009).

16. Ibid.

17. Manners, “Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?”; Michael Merlingen, Cas Mudde, and Ulrich Sedelmeier, “The Right and the Righteous? European Norms, Domestic Politics and Sanctions against Austria.” Journal of Common Market Studies 39(1): 59–77 (2001).

18. Document 2/14 in Sharon Pardo and Joel Peters, Israel and the European Union: A Documentary History (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012), 101. Unless otherwise mentioned, all the documents appear in Pardo and Peters, Israel and the European Union: A Documentary History; Dr. Gunnar Jarring, the Swedish ambassador to the USSR, was appointed in November 1967 by the United Nations (UN) Secretary General to help Arabs and Israelis to reach an agreement based on UN Security Council Resolution 242. The mission failed for numerous reasons.

19. Document 2/20, 106–07.

20. David Allen, “The Euro–Arab Dialogue.” Journal of Common Market Studies 16(4): 323–342 (1978); Haifaa A. Jawad, Euro–Arab Relations: A Study in Collective Diplomacy (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1992).

21. Document 2/38, 141–42.

22. Document 3/2, 156–58.

23. Ibid.

24. Document 3/16, 176–78.

25. Document 4/32, 274–75.

26. Document 5/48, 503–06.

27. For the use of military bases for civilian settlements and a historical account of the Nahal outposts, see Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, Lords of the Land: The Settlers and the State of Israel 1967–2004 (Or Yehuda: Kinneret Zmora-Beitan, Dvir, 2004), 374–382.

28. Ibid.

29. The justification for this settlement, which was the first one, is that prior to 1948 Jews lived in Kfar Etzion and were massacred by the Jordanian Legion.

30. Neve Gordon, Israel's Occupation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008).

31. Shlomo Gazit, Trapped Fools: Thirty Years of Israeli Policy in the Territories (London: Frank Cass, 2003).

32. Neve Gordon and Yinon Cohen, “Israeli Unilateralism and the Two-State Solution.” Journal of Palestine Studies 41(3): 1–13 (2012).

33. The settlers could not have built a single house and settled a family in it without government support, which has included providing infrastructure for the settlements and outposts (e.g., electricity, water, roads) and different kinds of subsidies and benefits to the settler population. Gordon, Israel's Occupation.

34. Gordon and Cohen, “Israeli Unilateralism and the Two-State Solution.”

35. Manners, “Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?”

36. European Economic Community, “Accord Commercial Entre la Communauté Économique Européenne et l‘État d'Israël, European Economic Community–Israel, 4 June 1964.” Official Journal 64: 1518 (1964).

37. Document 2/20, 106–07.

38. European Economic Community, “Agreement Between the European Economic Community and the State of Israel, European Economic Community-Israel, 11 May 1975.” Official Journal L 136: 3 (1975).

39. During these two decades, the EC/EU and Israel regularly updated their 1975 agreement and its protocols in a plethora of fields, but still there was no deep and comprehensive advancement of trade relations between the parties.

40. Søren Dosenrode and Anders Stubkjær, The European Union and the Middle East (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002); Sharon Pardo and Joel Peters, Uneasy Neighbors: Israel and the European Union (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010); Joel Peters, “Europe and the Middle East Peace Process: Emerging from the Sidelines,” in Stelios Stavridis, Theodore Couloumbis, Thanos Veremis and Neville Waites, ed., The Foreign Policies of the European Union's Mediterranean States and Applicant Countries in the 1990s, (Houndmills: Macmillan Press, 1999), 295–316.

41. Document 4/23, 229–53.

42. Association Agreements were signed with Tunisia (July 1995), Israel (November 1995), Turkey (Customs Union, January 1996), Morocco (February 1996), Palestinian Liberation Organization for the benefit of the Palestinian Authority (February 1997), Jordan (November 1997), Egypt (June 2001), Algeria (April 2002), Lebanon (June 2002). Since May 2011, the signature of an AA with Syria has been put on hold.

43. Document 4/11, 205–10.

44. Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics Annual Reports.

45. Document 5/9, 347–73.

46. Raffaella A. Del Sarto, “Wording and Meaning(s): EU–Israeli Political Cooperation according to the ENP Action Plan.” Mediterranean Politics 12(1): 59–74 (2007).

47. Moshe Hirsch, “Asymmetrical Factor Endowments, Progressive Rules of Origin and Commercial Cooperation in the Middle East” (Working Papers/Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, The Helmut Kohl Institute for European Studies – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1998); Esa Paasivirta, “EU Trading with Israel and Palestine: Parallel Legal Frameworks and Triangular Issues.” European Foreign Affairs Review 4(3): 305–326 (1999); Moshe Hirsch, “Rules of Origin as Trade or Foreign Policy Instruments? The European Union Policy on Products Manufactured in the Settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.” Fordham International Law Journal 26: 572–94 (2002–2003); Christian Hauswaldt, “Problems under the EC–Israel Association Agreement. The Export of Goods Produced in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under the EC–Israel Association Agreement.” European Journal of International Law 14(3): 591–611 (2003); Lior Zemer and Sharon Pardo, “The Qualified Zones in Transition: Navigating the Dynamics of the Euro-Israeli Customs Dispute.” European Foreign Affairs Review 8(1): 51–75 (2003); Elena Aoun, “European Foreign Policy and the Arab–Israeli Dispute: Much Ado About Nothing?” European Foreign Affairs Review 8(3): 289–312 (2003); Guy Harpaz, “The Dispute over the Treatment of Products Exported to the European Union from the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip: The Limits of Power and the Limits of the Law.” Journal of World Trade 38(6): 1049–1058 (2004); Guy Harpaz and Rachel Frid, “An Agreement Reached over the Treatment of Products Exported to the European Union from the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.” International Trade Law and Regulation 10(6): 32–33 (2004); Tal Sadeh, “Israel and a Euro-Mediterranean Internal Market.” Mediterranean Politics 9(1): 29–52 (2004); Lior Zemer and Sharon Pardo, “Justice and Foreign Affairs: Taking the European Neighbourhood Partner Countries to The European Court of Justice.” Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law 14(1): 1–19 (2006); Guy Harpaz, “Mind the Gap: Narrowing the Legitimacy Gap in EU–Israeli Relations.” European Foreign Affairs Review 13(1): 117–137 (2008).

48. Raffaella A. Del Sarto, “Back to Square One? The Netanyahu Government and the Prospects for Middle East Peace,” Mediterranean Politics 14(3): 421–428 (2009); Nathalie Tocci, “The Conflict and EU–Israeli Relations?” in Esra Bulut Aymat, ed., European Involvement in the Arab–Israeli Conflict, (Paris: European Union Institute for security Studies, 2010), 55–63; Pardo and Peters, Uneasy Neighbors: Israel and the European Union; Raffaella A. Del Sarto, “Plus ça change …? Israel, the EU and the Union for the Mediterranean.” Mediterranean Politics 16(1): 117–153 (2011); Tova Norlen, “Why is the EU ‘Irrelevant’ for Israel?” (opinion May 2012, European Union Institute for Security Studies, 2012).

49. Article 2 Protocol 4, Document 4/23, 229–53.

50. Document 4/18, 222–23.

51. Document 4/16, 219.

52. Document 4/29, 269–70.

53. Document 5/12, 376–77.

54. Case C-386/08, Firma Brita GmbH v. Hauptzollamt Hamburg-Hafen, 2010 ECJ EUR-Lex LEXIS 63 (25 Feb. 2010).

55. Guy Harpaz and Eyal Rubinson, “The Interface Between Trade, Law, Politics and the Erosion of Normative Power Europe: Comment on Brita.” European Law Review 35(4): 551–570 (2010); Sharon Pardo and Lior Zemer, “Bilateralism and the Politics of European Judicial Desire.” The Columbia Journal of European Law 17(2): 263–305 (2011); Pieter Jan Kuijper, “The Court of Justice and Unrecognized Entities Under International Law.” in Trade and Competition Law in the EU and Beyond, ed, Inge Govaere, Reinhard Quick and Marco Bronckers, 257–77 (Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2011); Marc Maresceau, “The Brita Ruling of the European Court of Justice: A Few Comments,” in Govaere, Quick, and Bronckers, eds., Trade and Competition Law in the EU and Beyond, 278–289; Laura Puccio, “Understanding EU Practice in Bilateral Free Trade Agreements: Brita and Preferential Rules of Origin in International Law.” European Law Review 36(1): 124–134 (2011).

56. Neve Gordon and Sharon Pardo, “Why Labels Matter: Israel's Occupation and Technical Customs Rules as Instruments of European Foreign Policy.” Unpublished (2013).

57. Central Bureau of Statistics Statistical, Abstract 2011.

58. Interview with Ya'ara Sa'adi from Who Profits, 30 Jan. 2012; Annie Robbins, “Unilever Shuts Down Ariel Settlement Factory, Moves Production West of the Green Line (Updated).” Mondoweiss, 5 February 2013.

59. Document 5/39, 470–79.

60. Document 5/41, 482 –85.

61. Document 5/46, 491–501.

62. Document 5/55, 515–23; Council of the European Union, “Eleventh Meeting of the EU–Israeli Association Council: Draft Statement of the European Union,” (Council of the EU, 2012).

63. Eurostat, External and Intra-EU Trade: A Statistical Yearbook, Data 1958–2010 (Brussels: Eurostat, 2011).

64. Central Bureau of Statistics of the State of Israel, Israel's Foreign Trade by Countries—2010 (Jerusalem: Central Bureau of Statistics of the State of Israel, 17 January 2011).

65. European Commission, Israel: EU Bilateral Trade and Trade with the World (Brussels, European Commission – DG Trade, 10 January 2012).

66. Neve Gordon and Sharon Pardo, “Explaining Regional Pacification: Lessons from EU–Israeli Relations,” (paper presented at the Conference on Explaining Regional Pacification: The Case of Europe and Lessons for the Middle East, The University of Haifa, November 2012).

67. Anthony D. Smith, “National Identity and the Idea of European Unity,” International Affairs 68(1): 55–76 (1992); Iver B. Neumann, “Self and Other in International Relations,” European Journal of International Relations, 2(2): 139–174 (1996); Stuart Hall, “The Spectacle of the ‘Other,’” in Stuart Hall, ed., Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (London: Sage and the Open University, 1997), 223–290; Bo Stråth, “A European Identity: To the Historical Limits of a Concept,” European Journal of Social Theory 5(4): 387–401(2002); Ian Manners and Richard Whitman, “The ‘Difference Engine’: Constructing and Representing the International Identity of the European Union,” Journal of European Public Policy 10(3): 380–404 (2003).

68. Document 2/5 in European Foreign Policy: Key Documents, ed. Christopher Hill and Karen E. Smith (London: Routledge, 2000), 93–97.

69. Article 9, ibid.

70. Article 13, ibid.