EU finalizes 10-point Middle East peace plan based on two states

2024-01-20 14:28:10

The European Union is preparing a ten-point plan for a “credible and comprehensive” solution to the conflict in the Middle East based on coexistence of two states, Palestinian and Israeliand the normalization of relations between Israel and the countries of the region, according to an initial draft collected by the Euractiv portal, specialized in European Union information.

The plan contemplates the Palestinian Authority as the recognized representative of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank in what would be the exclusion of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamasin a roadmap that would begin firmly with the holding of a “Preparatory Peace Conference” with the presence of the European Union, the United States, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Arab League and the United Nations.

However, the participants in this conference would be “at all times and with every step in contact” with Israeli and Palestinian officials to whom they would inform the evolution of events, although the first steps of this plan do not contemplate “efforts so that both can see each other’s faces”.

Israelis and Palestinians would not begin to actively participate in the talks until a year after this conference, the deadline estimated by the EU to establish the main lines of this peace plan, which will be presented to “the parties in conflict” as a “basis for final negotiations”.

“It would be up to them (Israelis and Palestinians) to negotiate the final text”adds the draft collected by Euractiv.

Without specifying details, the EU considers that an essential element of this plan would be “the development of robust security guarantees for both Israel and the future independent Palestinian State”, conditional on “full mutual diplomatic recognition and integration of both into the region”.

Besides, The plan contemplates the incorporation of a “peace support package”understood as a set of “political and security mechanisms, both regional and global” available to both Israelis and Palestinians “from the day they conclude their peace agreement.”

At the moment, and again according to Euractiv, the EU representative for the peace process, Sven Koopmans, has already held preliminary talks in this regard with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League to “try to revive” the process and has raised the possibility of holding a meeting to specifically discuss the initial EU proposal before the aforementioned international conference.