The EU Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process, Susanna Terstal, explained on Tuesday 23 June that she did not “think that the EU could easily replace the United States as a broker for the peace process”.
In a webchat organised by the Vienna School of International Studies, Mrs Terstal said the EU’s role is to discuss with the parties and with the other three members of the Quartet - Russia, the United States and the United Nations - “to find a way forward for further discussions based on the internationally agreed parameters”.
A quartet that is currently divided. “We don't agree on the same things right now. We talk to each other, we discuss the conflict, but no statements are issued”, the Special Representative summarised.
But Terstal added a touch of hope by recalling that Palestinians and Israelis had “shown that they can work together” to fight Covid-19.
However, in order to resume negotiations, each party needs to take steps to restore confidence, she added (see EUROPE 12498/23). This will become all the more difficult if Israel annexes part of the West Bank. “Such steps will have a devastating effect on the possibility of peace, on the stability of the region and on the credibility of a rules-based system”, summarised the EU representative (see EUROPE 12509/7).
And, according to Mrs Terstal, the status quo should not be the goal either. “This is not a tenable situation. The continued occupation of the West Bank is not an option. People’s lives are getting worse every day. We cannot have another generation of Palestinians growing up in Gaza without the possibility of building a future, there can’t be waves of terrorist attacks in Israel. We need to break the spiral of violence”, she said.
Asked about divisions within the EU (see EUROPE 12490/22), the Special Representative considered that they were more about form than substance. According to her, European leaders agree on the importance of international law and want to remain within the parameters of a two-state solution, with Jerusalem as the capital of both states and the 1967 borders. “They are all against annexation, because it would mean that the ‘67 borders are no longer valid”, she added. According to Terstal, the differences are more about how to proceed. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)