In 1980, with the Venice Declaration, the young EU carried out its greatest foreign policy act. Today, faced with the tragedy in Gaza, it is limited to declarations of circumstance. But Italy can do more. The comment by Stefano Stefanini, ISPI senior advisor, former permanent representative of Italy at the EU
In the Middle East, a few days of unprecedented violence wipe out many illusions of short-sighted politics. Of Israel, first of all: of security without peace. Peace with the Palestinians was linked to the two-state solution. Benjamin Netanyahu he thinks that there is no need for a solution and that Israel can live safely with Palestinians without a homeland or with more than one.
Second illusion, American and Western: that the acceptance of Israel by the Arab-Sunni side, sealed by the Abrahamic Agreements, would domesticate the Palestinian question.
Third, Israeli, Western and Arab: to be able to put Iran out of the game. Gaza under Hamas has instead become Tehran’s bridgehead, nestled between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean.
Fourth, finally, European: to still count for something in the Middle Eastern chessboard.
The war between Israel and Hamas ruthlessly lays bare the political weight and responsibility of international actors. For a change, they mostly fall on the shoulders of the United States. As he titled succinctly Bloomberg Opinion Today of May 15, “The Israeli crisis is Biden’s problem to be solved”.
The American Special Envoy, Hady Amr, arrived the same day in Jerusalem in full growth of hostilities, bombings and rockets. Task: to negotiate a ceasefire. It will probably also succeed by mutual exhaustion of war options. The Israelis have hit the main targets from the air and do not want to enter Gaza with the army, exposing themselves to the risks of an asymmetrical urban guerrilla. Hamas is running out of rocket supplies; Iran will not fail to supply them but it takes time.
The Americans are not alone in the diplomatic initiative to silence weapons. Arab countries are also involved, especially Egypt and Qatar, which have the greatest levers of pressure on Palestinians and Hamas. There is not much room for others, although there is no doubt that there are those who would step forward if the opportunity arises. Two random names: Russia (Vladimir Putin has good relations with Netanyahu) and Turkey. If the Americans fail they will try to take advantage of it.
Europeans recite from script: ritual condemnations of violence and calls for restraint, verbal support for American-Arab mediation. Still, the European Union has an important presence in Jerusalem. It has a role in the Palestinian Territories, crucial to the economic and financial support of the Palestinian Authority. But it is not a political role. The absence from the crisis simply reflects this state of affairs. The same relative shyness in European declarations, of Brussels as of the main capitals, is basically wise: it is better to be of few words when you have no say in the matter.
It wasn’t always like that. Indeed, it was the opposite. Precisely on the Israeli-Palestinian question, Europe marked what remains its main foreign policy act: the Venice Declaration of 1980 which paved the way for the recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) of Yasser Arafat – breaking with the United States on this point and pioneering the 1993 Oslo accords.
In 1980 it was not a “Union”, it was still called the Economic Community, it had only nine members, it did not have a High Representative or a diplomatic service or global strategies. But names, institutions, resources and documents are pale substitutes for political will and cohesion. Which there were then, with the British on board. Today they are in hiding.
Today, Europeans would be incapable of a new Venice Declaration. In fact, they don’t even try. Brussels has a highly professional diplomatic tool with an enviable network of embassies; the political handle is missing. The club has many members (27) with different and fragmented geopolitical sensitivities.
Foreign policy is not like trade policy and cannot be decided by a majority. Therefore it falls on the lowest common denominator of a plurality of diversified national interests. Brexit leaves an EU lacking a permanent member of the Security Council and a military and nuclear medium power, more international vocation, and a UK character in search of an author on the world stage. Two weaknesses don’t make one strength.
The Middle East itself illustrates plastically the two processes, parallel and inverse, of European foreign policy: institutional strengthening and the loss of political weight. In Venice and Oslo the long, and unfortunately not conclusive, “peace process” (Mepp) of the “quartet” of which the EU was part with Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the USA followed for a couple of decades. The European role, however, was gradually being marginalized until it disappeared in the latest developments, such as the Abrahamic Agreements, in which Europeans acted as spectators.
The European Union of 2021 has a decidedly greater international weight than the Economic Community of 1980. But, as it was once said – less today – than Germany, it is an economic and regulatory giant and a political dwarf. It will play a decisive role on fundamental issues such as climate change, post-Covid economic recovery or global taxation.
Let’s keep it tight. However, it will hardly go beyond petty foreign policy cabotage. It is good that Italy begins to reflect on it not to pursue national ambitions but to seek solid international anchors that the EU is unable to offer except in minimal terms. That can’t be enough.