22 - 28 February 2001
Issue No.522
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 22 - 28 February 2001 Issue No.522 |
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More than Washington's underwriters?
Egyptian officials like to maintain close and regular contacts with their European Union counterparts with a view to encouraging more comprehensive European involvement in the Middle East. This week in Rome, President Hosni Mubarak stressed that the economic role played by EU countries needs to be rounded out with a stronger political stance -- an issue that headlined top-level consultations in Cairo last week during the visit of Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar. Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Amr Moussa toured several European capitals -- notably Stockholm, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency -- pressing the need for direct European involvement in the Middle East peace process and helping to ease crippling sanctions on Iraq and Libya.
Egyptian diplomatic sources concur that there is a resounding sense of disappointment, and even concern, regarding the reticence of leading European countries about heated issues, like Palestine and Iraq. During the past four years, starting with the election of former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the role of the EU in the peace process has fallen far short of Egypt's expectations. "There was a time when we thought that the EU, particularly a country with a keen interest in the Middle East, like France, could have done much more to temper unreasonable Israeli policies, but this was rarely the case," remarked one Egyptian diplomat. With the exception of the Berlin Declaration, the diplomat added, there have been only mixed signals from European side on the peace process. Issued in 1999 by the EU, the Berlin Declaration flatly rejected Israel's claim that a unified Jerusalem was its capital.
With the onset of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in late September, Egypt was expecting the EU to adopt a clear stance against the obviously excessive force used by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians. But despite the presence of top EU figure Javier Solana at the hastily convened Sharm Al-Sheikh summit in October, the response has been lacklustre.
"It was then that we had to stop and ask ourselves how long could this lack of [serious] European involvement go on," said an Egyptian diplomatic source. "We also had to ask ourselves a particular question about France: are we still expecting the 'Charles de Gaulle' France, when we shouldn't be?"
The EU's response to criticism regarding the nature and scope of its role in the Middle East peace process is uniform: the US has taken the lead with negotiations. The EU is playing a supportive role in the economic arena. "The Europeans do not need to complicate the efforts of the US," former British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said in Cairo a few weeks ago following a meeting with Foreign Minister Moussa. So while Miguel Moratinos, the EU's special envoy on the Middle East peace process, continues to shuttle from one Middle Eastern city to the next, evidence of any clear political role in the Middle East remains elusive.
This fact continues to baffle Egyptian officials, who feel that being part of the Mediterranean community inextricably joins Europe and the Middle East. One senior diplomatic source noted that it is almost absurd for the EU to be talking about a security strategy for the Middle East without playing a more constructive role in the politics of the region, noting that this includes Iraq as much as the peace process.
The EU has been equally stand-offish about the decade of sanctions that has impoverished Iraq. Paris, for example, often makes statements in support of reconsidering the sanctions regime, but this has not been reflected in the stance taken by France's permanent representative to the UN in the Security Council. Norway, currently a member of the Security Council and the present chair of the UN committee for sanctions on Iraq, has also expressed the need to reduce the suffering of the Iraqi people. But Oslo has done little in this direction.
Growing concern about the EU's political role has increasingly spread to most international and regional political circles. Last month, during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the pressure on the EU to assume its political responsibilities in world affairs was evident. It is no easy task, however. An Italian political commentator told Al-Ahram Weekly that the EU presidency is permanently handicapped by the often large split in opinions among EU member states on Middle Eastern issues. "What France and Italy would agree on -- for example, the issue of Iraq -- turns out to be something that is opposed by Britain and Germany," he explained. "You cannot expect the EU presidency, even when it is taken by a country like France, to really be able to act."
According to this commentator, the EU is by definition more of an economic body, rather than a political entity. Thus, "no great political expectations" should be entertained for the EU when it comes to the Middle East. "It is financial aid that the EU is best capable of doing," he said.
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