Payer or Player? The Role of the European Union in the Middle East Peace Process

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: „The Union's position and role: Promoter of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace and of prosperity for the region; Key player in the political and economic process” (The European Union on its Middle East policy web site). This way of portraying itself does not leave any doubt about the position and role of the European Union (EU) in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In practice, however, the EU does not appear to be very influential in the region. So far all treaties and agreements concerning the Middle East peace process have been achieved under the mediation and sometimes the intervention of the United States (U.S.). Europe has usually watched these political developments from the sidelines. That does not mean that in this region Europe has no role at all. The EU is involved in the peace process – not in the political, however, but in the economic part. Since the Oslo-agreement in 1993 European money has kept the quasi-state of the Palestinians alive and thus the EU is usually perceived as payer but not as player in the Arab-Israeli conflict. At the moment, however, in which the situation in the Middle East is characterised by violent clashes between Palestinians and Israelis and in which there is the widespread assumption that the peace process is on the brink of disaster, there are growing demands that Europe should also play a greater political role in the region. Indeed, in recent weeks Europe has appeared as a mediator between Israelis and Palestinians. In the name of Europe the German foreign minister Joschka Fischer has acted twice as a mediator between both conflict parties. Particularly the Arabs and Palestinians want the EU to get involved more strongly in the peace process. They perceive America, which is doubtlessly the most powerful actor in the conflict, as biased and more in favour of Israel and therefore they hope that Europe could be a kind of ‘counterweight’ to the U.S Against this background it has to be asked whether the European Union would be able to play a major political role so that one could speak about Europe not only as payer but also as player in the peace process? In order to answer this question it is firstly necessary to examine the main aspects that determine the capabilities and limits of the European Union in international affairs. One of the main factors in this respect is doubtlessly the concept of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the institutional framework which is [...]