Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 139)
THURSDAY 8 MARCH 2007
DR RICHARD YOUNGS AND DR ROBERT SPRINGBORG
Q120 Lord Tomlinson:
I have one more supplementary question because that struck me
slightly as being the ambition of every gambler, of being able
to have an each-way bet on a two-horse race. You seem to be saying
to the Committee that you thought we ought to maintain the three
points, but almost find a way of disguising the fact that we were
maintaining them in the hope that we could make progress. Now,
how are we actually going to bridge that gap of maintaining the
three conditions, which I think most members of this Committee
would believe are important conditions to our international credibility,
and at the same time hold them in such almost abeyance that we
could persuade the Unity Government that we did not really mean
what we were saying and they could really start trading with us?
Dr Youngs: I think the issue is the kind of
tactics that the EU tries to employ to actually maximise the possibility
of those conditions being fulfilled. I think many EU diplomats
have been minded to argue that the impact of the boycott is that
that has helped moderate Hamas positions and it has pushed it
towards accepting the principle of the Unity Government. I think
it is probably more convincing to argue that both Hamas and Fatah
have realised that they are simply fighting each other into a
standstill, that neither can prevail convincingly over the other
in terms of an armed conflict and, therefore, both have had the
incentive to enter into the Unity Government. For me, the problem
with the EU policy over the last year is that the argument was
that the EU could try to combine the best of two worlds, that
it could pressure Hamas through the boycott, but at the same time
ensure that basic services were provided through the Temporary
International Mechanism, so it is routinely pointed out that during
the last year the amount of EU assistance going to the Occupied
Territories has actually increased quite significantly. For example,
the overall EU spend has increased to about $800 million, up about
a quarter between 2005 and 2006, and a lot of the aid projects
actually were not cut off immediately, but were just wound down
in an ad hoc way. For me, the trouble is that, in trying to combine
the best of those two worlds, the outcome arguably has been the
worst of two worlds, namely that the EU has increased resources,
but undoubtedly has lost goodwill, popularity and leverage amongst
the Palestinians, but at the same time the support provided through
the Temporary International Mechanism is a drop in the ocean compared
to the magnitude of challenges facing the Occupied Territories,
and it has not been able to prevent quite a significant increase
in poverty levels amongst the Palestinians during the last year.
Q121 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
We agree that the Venice Declaration was, as its name implies,
in practice pure Euro-rhetoric which put the prospects of a reasonable
relationship with Israel back for a generation. Yes, there are
very important things which have been done at the micro-level
by the European Union and the relationship with Israel is now
better, but in what way can these micro-initiatives be translated
into effective leverage for the bigger issues? Nobody is suggesting,
for example, that the trade relationships with Israel are likely
to be an effective lever for pressure.
Dr Youngs: I would argue that one of the areas
where perhaps we have seen the biggest disappointment in the EU
philosophy has been on the economic side, the fact that Israel
has basically disregarded some of the key principles inherent
in the Association Agreement signed with the EU. I recognise that
there are many, many reports over many years which have urged
the EU to get tougher with Israel and the retort is always that
that would be counter-productive and anyway would not win—
Q122 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
You are suggesting that there should be a boycott?
Dr Youngs:—would not win the support of
all Member States, for well-known, historical reasons. Even if
one shares some of that caution and scepticism, I think it is
undoubtedly the case that one thing that has not been good for
EU influence and credibility is for Israel to have been able to
disregard the economic principles of the agreements that it itself
has signed with the European Union on the issue of labelling of
products from settlements and on the Israeli insistence that Palestinian
exports to European markets have to pass through Israeli intermediaries.
I think the fact that the EU has stood aside and allowed these
kinds of things to happen has undermined the EU's own economic
leverage.
Q123 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
That is par for the course. The EU has not insisted on the human
rights clauses or worldwide, but are you suggesting that these
elements in the Agreement can somehow be translated into effective
pressure on Jerusalem, refugees or whatever?
Dr Youngs: I would argue that it is at this
kind of economic level where the EU can operate best, but it needs
to understand that, after 10 years of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership,
it needs to begin to use this very rich, dense network of co-operation
on every conceivable area of policy as a way of gaining leverage
that is actually directly related to the prospects of the EU's
own instruments working effectively. If only the EU would focus
on creating the conditions for its own economic, social, civil
society initiatives to work properly, that in itself could be
an advance. For example, the EU has set up a number of trilateral
forums which involve the European Union, the Israelis and the
Palestinians to talk about issues of practical co-operation, transport,
energy, infrastructure. Most people argue that, in a way, these
provide a useful forum for Israelis and Palestinians to sit down
and talk about issues of practical co-operation while violence
has escalated, but these forums simply have not been able to work
in the way that was intended and the kind of philosophy that was
expounded when the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership was set up has
not been able to kick in, has not been able to work effectively.
For example, whilst the agreement on movement and access has been
disregarded, the conditions do not exist for those kinds of instruments
to work in the way they were designed, and I think that is one
of the disappointing aspects of European policy, that these low
politics instruments have not themselves been able to improve
overarching political conditions, but seem rather dependent and
reactive on a prior improvement in those political conditions.
Q124 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
Would you agree that the failure to use those instruments works
on both sides, not only in terms of the settlements, closures
and so on, but in terms of an unwillingness to deal with the Palestinians
in the past before the Hamas victory over matters like the Palestinian
textbooks praising shahidis and the corruption which was endemic
and which went without serious criticism from OLAF?
Dr Youngs: I would have a great deal of sympathy
with that, I think. The EU has a potential to nudge Palestinian
democratic reform far more than it did do although I think the
EU is walking a thin line in taking on the lead role on institutional
reform. On the one hand, the big issue of course was still that
one cannot not have a fully functioning, democratic Palestinian
State until occupation is ended, so that is still the big issue,
and that focusing and pressing on issues of corruption, for example,
should not be a kind of pretext for taking the critical spotlight
off occupation, but, on the other hand, I think the EU did realise
that neglecting issues of underlying reform was itself militating
against the prospects for longer-term peace. I think the danger
was that, for many years, the EU was pouring money into a black
hole and it did not pursue the reform agenda as vigorously as
it could have done. It was rather ambivalent when elections were
postponed in 2005 and the perception was that, in talking about
democratic reform, what the EU really meant was supporting Abbas
against the rise of Hamas, and I think the lesson is that, the
more one does that, the more one actually facilitates the conditions
that explain the rise of Hamas. That is why I think, in a way,
there is something counter-intuitive in the current approach of
going back to a situation where the EU is favouring a small clique
of Fatah elites around the President's office because, for many
years, the EU was funding precisely this clique, their record
on governance standards was rather bad and that was part of the
reason why Hamas won the elections in 2006. I think, if we are
in a situation where the EU can move back towards funding longer-term
institutional reform issues, there are some very important lessons
there for the way in which that reform agenda should be supported.
I think it is important not to equate supporting democratic reform
with supporting the President or supporting our kind of moderate
allies. I think in the lessons from other conflict situations
around the world, it is that kind of logic that gets international
actors into all kinds of problems when their talk of supporting
democratic norms is reduced to support for "our kind of democrats",
and I think that must be realised on the back of the formation
of a new government.
Dr Springborg: I think the EU has gotten remarkably
little for the money it has spent in Israel and Palestine on this
whole conflict, and it has done so with regard to both actors.
We have heard Richard just describing the inability to induce
Israel to comply with agreements that it has signed for a variety
of reasons and, on the other side, with which I am more familiar,
the inability to translate what has been general budgetary support
of a very great amount into any sort of specific commitment on
the part of the Palestinians or accomplishments on the part of
the Palestinians to what we broadly call `reform'. It is high
politics with regard to Israel and it is low politics with regard
to Palestine, and low politics means essentially state-building,
all the various activities that would go into that. I am more
familiar with that than I am with high policy matters.
What is absolutely apparent, in my mind
from viewing the situation on the ground, is that the EU is not
taken as a serious actor in comparison to the bilateral actors,
whether the United States or the European countries themselves.
So the general budgetary support, which was, interestingly enough,
never passed through the Legislature, the Palestinian Legislative
Council, but was provided to the executive branch essentially
without any conditions, undermined the very role of the Legislature
in its capacity to oversee the Executive by virtue of being a
blank cheque to the Executive. This is true of a considerable
amount of the aid also given by the United States, but it is true
of basically all the assistance given by the European Union. How
would gentlemen in this august body feel if a major percentage,
(and indeed the Palestinians are more dependent on donor assistance
than virtually any other people in the world), if a primary part
of their budget were beyond their oversight? It would undermine
the very role of the institution.
So that is a starting point for the sort
of leverage which, it seems to me, is necessary on the part of
the Palestinians. I would urge the EU, because it has been the
primary financial backer—and that financial backing now
is essentially only humanitarian assistance, it is nothing more
than that, so it has no institutional carryovers at all now and
it had only slight ones before that,—to balance the pressure
that it has by virtue of the purse strings. Whether it is in the
variety of agreements with the Israelis regarding access, or with
the Palestinians for budgetary support, the EU should use the
purse strings on both sides in a balanced way to try to bring
the two parties together, rather than leaning heavily on one side
or the other. It is perfectly clear that the record has been to
lean very heavily on the Palestinian side and very lightly, if
at all, on the Israeli side.
Q125 Lord Tomlinson:
We have been hearing a great deal in the last 10 minutes or so
about the money going to Palestine and how it is being used, and
you have now referred to the very substantial funds actually which
go from donors, including Europe, to Israel. One of the charges
which has been made is that a lot of that is being used to provide
infrastructure, road infrastructure, for example, which is almost
entirely related to the construction of a wall and the division
of Palestine and that this is an area where Europe is effectively,
it has been put in one paper we received, financing apartheid,
the separation. Is this not an area, if we are going to talk about
balance, where Europe could be looking at the way that funds are
being used by Israel as well as the issues we have just been discussing
about Palestine?
Dr Springborg: Yes, it is. The fungibility of
those monies of course is a question and to track how monies are
used in a complex, large economy like that of Israel is difficult.
But there is a precedent and that was the United States when it,
under the previous Bush Administration, tied its pledge on loans
to the non-utilisation of those funds in the Occupied Territories.
It reduced the amount provided in direct relation to the amount
of money Israel was using in the Occupied Territories from those
funds. It sent quite a strong message from the Bush Administration
at that time, which played a part in no small measure in bringing
about a more flexible negotiating attitude and ultimately, it
seems to me, to the Oslo Process. Therefore, there is a precedent
in the use of monies, even when they are quite fungible in the
case of Israel, to send a message that we, as the United States
in that case or we as the EU potentially in this one, do not support
your activities, such as road-building in the Occupied Territories,
we do not want our monies being used there. Israel is very attentive
to that, not because the money itself means so terribly much,
but because of the diplomatic message that it sends.
Q126 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
It is a bit of an illusion because monies which are not spent
for A or which are not used for A will be diverted to B, so is
that not a bit of gesture politics really?
Dr Springborg: Well, it is gesture politics
because these monies are very fungible. You are absolutely right.
But we do have the historical example where in fact, when the
monies were not all that great, they were symbolic, so they nevertheless
did have an impact. I think the historical records are reasonably
clear on that.
Q127 Lord Swinfen:
I think to some extent you have already answered my question,
but you may want to say some more. What, in your view, have been
the consequences of the recent EU positions, especially the boycotting
of the Hamas-led Palestinian Government? Do you think the EU should
engage with the national Unity Government and what conditions
would you put on that?
Dr Springborg: I have just returned from Ramallah
myself where I was at a conference on administrative reform there.
To me, it is a tragedy that a transition was not supported by
the EU and by other donor states. I look upon this not only from
the point of view of Palestine, but from democratisation more
generally in the Middle East. The January 2006 election, which
brought about a change in government in Palestine, was the first
time in the history of the modern Arab world that a free and fair
election has led to that result. We have, as democratisers, focused
very heavily on elections and a variety of other activities to
promote democracy. We have never had the opportunity to go the
next step of what happens if an election brings about a change
in government, and what would happen within the executive branch
as a result of that. No Arab state has adequate civil service
laws and regulations that enable a smooth transition of power.
They do not have a history of transition or power they do not
have regulations for it and they do not have the tradition of
independent civil service organisations. Here was an opportunity
where donors have enormous influence to bring about a transition
of power that would insulate, not only at this time but in the
future, the civil service from the sorts of depredations that
Fatah engaged in since the civil service was built up from 1993.
There was a huge loss of opportunity here to create, in a sense,
a modern independent civil service. That was overlooked, it seems
to me, in the broader issues surrounding this transition, including
Islamism versus secularism and a variety of other considerations.
At the heart of the matter was the opportunity to create a government
that would be responsive, in a proper way, to the party in power
with all the appropriate safeguards, and so on, for the independence
of that civil service. That to me was not only a loss for Palestine
but a loss for our broader democratisation effort throughout the
Arab world. The consequences on the ground, as I have witnessed
them just recently and over a long period of time, of this failed
transition, is to undermine the capacity of Palestinians to have
any idea of their own future. The Oslo process had created in
the minds of Palestinians a vision of their economic, social and
political future they were pretty much agreed upon. The election
of Hamas called into question that future because it was a radical
departure from the status quo. The failure of any government to
be in power—and I mean that because neither the executive
nor the legislative branch nor the judicial branch are working
and have not been working since March/April a year ago—means
the Palestinians have lost a sense of what their future will be.
When you have no vision of the future, the idea that you can engage
in administrative reform is lost. Why are we tinkering? There
are no clear objectives. The cost of the boycott of the Palestinian
government has been enormous to not only state building in Palestine,
but to the image that Palestinians have of themselves and their
future; they are a lost people. That means, in my mind, a desperate
people, and a desperate people are far less likely to be good
partners for peace than those who are much less desperate, feel
in control of their fate, and have an idea of where they want
to take their nation. That has been, to my mind, the price of,
first, the election and the outcome, but more importantly the
failure of the transition and the failure of the EU to support
that transition.
Q128 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
All institutions are politicised. It is a fault of government
and it is a fault of the non-governmental organisations because
their counterparts in Palestine are all politicised in some way.
They are not impartial. Can you say a little about the security
organisations and the extent to which EU money in the past went
to assist those on a sort of job creation basis and how we reform
the security structures?
Dr Springborg: Richard is better placed to describe
the security sector reform efforts by the EU. I would just say
that I am not so sure that all civil society organisations are
themselves as politicised, paradoxically, as the government itself.
The government was, in a sense, used as an extension of Fatah
to implement the will of Yasser Arafat and his cronies. Many civil
society organisations reacted against that. They wanted to look
upon themselves more in terms of good governance—that they
were supporting, upholding and advocating the principles of good
governance against the government that was manifestly bad. I think
that engaging with civil society in Palestine has real potential
precisely because there is a substantial commitment to good governance
in that sector and much less of a commitment to it in government
itself. That includes, of course, and most importantly, the security
sector. I am sure Richard has views on the EU support for it.
Dr Youngs: I wanted to reinforce Robert's point
about the damaging impact on the EU's wider relations with the
Middle East because of the fact the EU declined to take the opportunity
to support the democratic transition last year. Here one had democratic
elections, and the nature of the EU's decision not to deal with
the results of those elections has had a damaging impact for its
broader reform agenda across the Middle East. It has strengthened
the voices of sceptics who argue that the EU is completely disingenuous
in its support of democratic norms and would not be willing to
deal with democratically elected governments whose policies we
may uncomfortable with. I have answered some of the points regarding
the way in which we could engage with a new government. While
there is a lot of optimism at the moment about the prospects of
doing that, there is one word of caution. Coming back to the point,
I do not think we should see the unity government in itself as
a panacea. In particular, care needs to be taken in case it leads
to a situation where you get an elite power sharing deal with
decisions being taken behind closed doors in a way that diminishes
the responsiveness of government and leads to a situation where
the population feels more excluded from public decision making.
The lesson from other conflict situations is where that happens
it does not auger well for long-term peace. On security sector
reform, again this was an area where the EU had begun to build
up some quite promising potential through the COPPS programme,
which was initially a UK programme and became an EU initiative.
One of the disappointing issues is that has basically been rendered
inoperational during the last year. It is often asserted that
the EU has had more of a focus on genuine underlying reform of
the security sector and does talk about the need to strengthen
civilian control over security forces and the need to help create
a single security service, and that contrasts with the US approach
where we know that the US has approved quite large funding directly
for the presidential guard. That difference, to a certain extent,
is real; it is genuine. I think the EU has tried to address longer
term reform of the security sectors but there are shortcomings
in the EU's own approach. The EU's own approach raises some quite
serious questions. The EU has tried to link various issues of
rule of law to its provision of security assistance but most of
the aid under COPPS has still gone to the provision of hardware,
of anti-riot equipment, and not really addressing the more fundamental
reform issues. Within the Palestinian territories the COPPS were
still perceived as the EU helping to try and quash Hamas more
than giving Hamas a legitimate stake in the provision of security.
That imbalance is something that would still need to be addressed
if it is the case that security sector reform is brought back
into a broadened international funding mechanism.
Q129 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
The numbers clearly supported a very large security sector, sometimes
effectively private armies. Did the EU do anything to make it
more manageable, to reduce the numbers?
Dr Youngs: No, I do not think it did. There
were various initiatives talking in rather general terms about
the importance of embedding the provision of security within a
framework subject to the rule of law but that is part of my point.
I do not think it got down to this nitty-gritty level of making
sure that one was not simply, or even inadvertently, supporting
one faction against another, rather than incorporating this plethora
of different security providers into a more coherent framework
that really was subject to democratic accountability. A lot of
the ideas were right and well intentioned but that was not really
working even before COPPS became inoperational after the boycott
last year.
Q130 Chairman:
You have implicitly answered the second part of Lord Swinfen's
question about whether the EU should encourage others to engage
with the government of national unity. The final point was on
what conditions should it do this? Do you have any view on that?
Dr Youngs: We have heard a lot of statements
and ministerial speeches in recent weeks with prominent European
politicians saying that we need to judge the new government and
Hamas on its actions rather than simply continuing to back Hamas
into a corner to fulfil the condition, particularly on recognition,
in a formal rhetorical sense, in a way that Hamas at the moment
is probably unlikely to do, when actually some of these governance
issues are of greater concern and relevance to people's day-to-day
concerns. Some of the tragedy of putting all the emphasis on the
well-known three conditions over the last year is it has diverted
attention from some of the very real and serious governance concerns
not only related to Fatah but in relation to Hamas as well. There
are some reports that point to concerns over the clientelism,
the nepotism, that increasingly conditions the way that Hamas
distributes its own network of social benefits. That is a real
factor engendering some of the social tensions we have seen over
the last year. Again the EU has declined to try and improve those
kinds of governance concerns because of its priority attention
on the other three conditions.
Dr Springborg: I think it needs to be recognised
that Saudi Arabia has put its shoulder to the wheel of peacemaking
in the region, and the fact that King Abdullah hosted the meeting
in Mecca which essentially put the Saudis in the forefront of
trying to not only arbitrate between Hamas and Fatah, but to come
up with a solution that would be acceptable to the EU and the
world as a whole. It was a very important contribution. The fact
that the United States in particular has hung back from fully
endorsing the Mecca agreement, the EU and some of its Member States,
but much less so, is not only not to be thankful for this effort
by the Saudis, but to forego the opportunity to build on it. It
is my understanding of that agreement that it called for the "respect"
by Hamas for existing agreements signed by the PLO and the PA.
It seems to me that is virtually enough to build upon. If they
are respecting the agreements, then implicitly they are also governed
by the other two conditions that Richard has just referred to.
We would do ourselves two services by using the Mecca agreement:
first, we would reinforce this very favourable role that the Saudis
have assumed for themselves and performed so adroitly, in my mind;
and, secondly, we then open up the possibility of confirming through
action what this term "respect" actually means, and
by so doing then gain complete compliance with the other two aspects
of the agreement, namely non-violence and recognition of Israel.
We have every reason to move in behind this Mecca agreement.
Q131 Lord Swinfen:
I wonder if any training is being given by anyone to the Palestinian
administration on the independence of the civil service.
Dr Springborg: The UK government did indeed
have a project of that nature which originally was to be with
three ministries and, for a variety of reasons, it was then reduced
to one, the Ministry of Labour and Manpower. That activity was
basically just gearing up when the elections occurred. Then the
prohibition on dealing directly with the PA was imposed upon the
project so the UK stepped back from it. I am not aware of any
activity with the public administration in Palestine that has
gone on over any protracted period with an objective in mind of
creating an independent civil service. Now this particular project
continues with DFID, but on the grounds of working with civil
society organisations trying to use them as leverage to accomplish
public administration reform, but not within the public administration
itself.
Q132 Lord Crickhowell:
We have covered part of the ground in the fourth question we had
in our paper but it does specifically refer to initiatives under
way to build better relations between Israeli and Palestinian
citizens through civil society and other projects, what impact
they had and should they be stepped up. Do you want to add anything
to what you have already said in earlier answers?
Dr Youngs: I have stated my position that basically
the central point here is that a lot of those projects had ceased
to function in de facto terms even before the Hamas electoral
victory. Understandably a lot of the attention of debate over
the last year has been on the boycott but in some senses the EU
model was faltering well before that decision. A lot of southern
Mediterranean governments do not send delegations to a lot of
the low politics forums of co-operation that exist under the Euro
Mediterranean partnership. Things like the Partnership for Peace
Programme which was operated under the rubric of the Euro Mediterranean
partnership have basically stagnated. When the Tenth Anniversary
of the Euro Mediterranean partnership was celebrated at the end
of 2005 only one Arab head of state attended that summit which
sent a symbolic message as to the limits of EU leverage. The impact
has been very limited and it calls for the need not to abandon
those types of instruments but to make sure they are pursued as
part of a broader political engagement.
Dr Springborg: I would like to reinforce what
Richard said. Track two diplomacy flourished during the Oslo process
when it looked as if there was an end in site that would result
in an independent Palestinian state. Once the second Intifada
occurred everything unrolled after that, so track two diplomacy
became almost irrelevant. It became irrelevant because both sides
hardened. The overlap between the Israelis and the Palestinians
grew less and less. The number of individuals and organisations
that would engage in effective track two discussions and broader
"coming to know one another" discussions significantly
declined. The lesson is that the climate in which these sorts
of interactions can prosper has to be a conducive one. We are
far from that at the present time. I do not think there is much
sense in focusing on civil society actors when the context is
so unfavourable on either side for them to engage fruitfully.
It is probably not the time to try to push that one too hard.
Q133 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
To what extent should we read Mecca in terms of Sunni-Shia and
the concern of the Saudis that Iran was having a disproportionate
influence on, Hezbollah, Hamas and so on?
Dr Springborg: I think that we in the West tend
to over-emphasise the Sunni-Shia divide. It is certainly there.
The Saudis are concerned about Iran, but they are engaged with
Iran, as recent diplomatic missions would attest. Some governments
in the Arab world have overstated the divide for their own purposes.
I do not think in this case in Mecca, and the agreement that was
forged there, we need to attribute this to fear on the part of
Saudi Arabia of Iran getting some sort of an upper hand vis-a"-vis
Palestine. The Iranians do not have many cards to play in Palestine,
unlike Lebanon. The Saudis have a significant track record of
direct engagement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; after all,
it was their initiative back in 2002 that led to the concerted
Arab view of what the settlement should be. I think the Sunni-Shia
divide is possibly a minor factor in Saudi calculations.
Q134 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
They went to sleep a little after 2002, did they not?
Dr Springborg: They did indeed, but it partly
has to do with regime transition within Saudi Arabia itself and
partly to do with the conditions. Now the conditions are truly
desperate and the Saudis typically move when conditions are bad,
not when they are good.
Q135 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
It is also fair to say that Fatah has used the Shia charge against
Hamas for example in its anniversary celebrations in January.
For example, Hamas equating with Shia more damaging because of
the Iranians exulting at the Iraqi execution of Saddam Hussein.
That was a major charge which Fatah was using for its own purposes
against Hamas.
Dr Springborg: Exactly. It is this, dare I say,
petty politicking, that is now going on between Sunni and Shia
that certainly does reflect animosities even at a popular level.
I do not see us being engulfed in some sort of overwhelming Sunni-Shia
conflagration in the region. It is another factor one needs to
be aware of and politicians will use it for their purposes, but
is it really so divisive that we have to understand all the events
on the ground through that lens? I think the answer is no.
Q136 Chairman:
We have quite a number of further questions to ask. Could we move
on to the coherence of the European Union's position. Reference
has already been made to the activities of individual Member States
as well as the Union as a whole. How coherent and co-ordinated
are the European Union's policies and instruments?
Dr Youngs: This is a long-running problem. There
is a clear disconnect between the political diplomatic level and
the on-the-ground initiatives and presence of the EU and various
European governments. This is a problem that is generic to CFSP.
I think most analysts and practitioners recognise that it is a
particularly serious problem in the context of the Middle East
peace process. The long-running charge from the EU high representative
and special representative is, in particular, that the rotating
nature of the six months' presidency militates against continuity.
One has a situation where for six months one presidency will be
pushing the EU for greater engagement and the next presidency
will want to rein back. Most people agree this has interrupted
the continuity of the EU policy and made it more difficult to
build up constant mutual trust amongst the different players.
That really is a serious problem. Also competitive national diplomacy
does not help the situation. Of course there are a large number
of bilateral visits made, for example to Lebanon after the conflict
last summer, that were not co-ordinated at the European level.
One has a number of European governments forwarding well-meaning
peace initiatives at a national level that are not co-ordinated
at European level. One example was the recent initiative launched
by the Spanish government. These initiatives do not seem to go
anywhere and seem just to confuse the picture. The message from
the region is this lack of co-ordination makes it very difficult
to understand who is speaking on behalf of the EU. Different governments
often undercut each other or, at the very least, give different
nuances in their positions so this is an area that definitely
needs to be worked on.
Dr Springborg: If I could add the sort of worm's
eye view of this, that is to say the focus on state building as
opposed to the broader diplomacy in the Middle East peace process.
It reflects what Richard was suggesting about the—incoherence
would be too strong a term—failure of diplomatic co-ordination
between the Member States of the EU and the ability of the EU
to act as a single, coherent actor.
With regard to state building on the ground
in Palestine, the EU is not viewed as a terribly major actor.
Despite the fact it is the major contributor, these are general
budgetary and now humanitarian assistance support funds. When
it comes to Palestinians, whether in government or an NGO, looking
for partners, they rarely look to the EU; they are more typically
engaged with European Member States or with the United States.
The consequence of this is what was referred to last week at this
conference as "shopping around". You could say this
is a good thing that these actors looking for donor support are
sharpening up their act and trying to present themselves well,
but everyone agrees there is a downside, which is fragmentation
of whatever area one is looking at within the Palestinian body
politic—within institutions and in civil society itself.
The donors themselves have failed to establish a mechanism between
themselves, on the one hand, and the Palestinians, on the other.
It is essentially a chaotic situation of markets on both sides,
of donors looking for activities to support, and those who would
be involved in the activities looking for donors. The consequence
of this is that the aggregation of these particular projects amounts
to very little. They are one-off projects not integrated into
a broader strategy.
Secondly, to build accountable governance
the purse strings are very important. As I mentioned before, if
all of these activities are circumventing the state structure,
which basically has occurred, then there is no capacity on the
part of parliament or local governments, for example, to hold
accountable both donors and the beneficiaries of projects given
donor support. The EU is only part, in my mind, of a much broader
problem in this regard, but the EU could and, in my mind, should
take the lead in trying to create the interface mechanism between
the donors, on the one hand, and the Palestinian recipients, on
the other, so as to reinforce good governance and the engagement
of civil society productively, rather than leave it in the rather
anarchic state in which it is presently situated.
Dr Youngs: One message that was coming very
clearly from recipients in the occupied territories of European
funding before the boycott was that they often were receiving
quite small amounts of money for very good projects but projects
operating on a fairly small scale in complete ignorance of the
fact that rather similar projects were being funded by other European
donors and there was a problem of duplication. These were not
being amplified up to a level where there was some critical mass
behind the governance agenda. CFSP was designed so that the EU
whole would be greater than the sum of its parts. The result has
rather been the other way around. There are lots of very good
individual initiatives but these do not really gel together. It
is not clear who is speaking on the EU's behalf and the result
is the whole ends up being rather less than the sum of its parts.
Chairman: Commissioner Michel has reached
some initiative in this direction that might lead to a greater
degree of coordination not only in the Middle East but elsewhere.
Q137 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
At the most senior level it is the visits to Lebanon and elsewhere
by Prime Minister Blair and President Chirac. In addition to the
problems of co-ordination between the EU and individual national
governments, what can you say about the relationship between the
United States' effort and the EU on the ground?
Dr Springborg: The Americans prefer to go it
alone. There is very little co-ordination on the ground between
the Americans and anyone else, that I can diagnose. I have worked
on both sides of the fence. What I have noticed is the European
actors, whether acting in the bilateral context or within the
EU, tend to keep one another informed. There is a series of joint
projects outside the structure of the EU that are arranged on
a bilateral and multilateral basis between European countries.
There was a regular donors' meeting in which they invest some
of their time and their interests.
The Americans do not engage in that way.
There is no attempt to co-ordinate their projects with Europeans
or the European Union. I have been engaged in two particular projects
on the ground: one in the legal judicial system and one with the
parliament. These were American projects that were bracketed on
either side by European projects and there was no attempt to integrate
sequentially the two activities. Substantial amounts of money,
in excess of US$20 million, were being spent but absolutely no
connection whatsoever between the activities. At the highest level
the Americans tend to pursue matters independently and that translates
into activities on the ground that are seen within very much a
relationship between America, Israel and Palestine, not between
America and the other donors who are engaged.
Q138 Chairman:
The other aspect of co-ordination and coherence is between the
various different presences of the EU in the area, the special
representative, the Commission delegation, the heads of ESDP missions.
How well do you feel they are co-ordinated and how coherent are
they?
Dr Youngs: In terms of overall co-ordination
I would reiterate the same points. All I can say on the special
representative is that the general impression seems to be that
he has succeeded in gaining quite a positive reputation and that
he has been influential, particularly in situations of micro-conflict,
release of hostages and these kinds of issues. That is where his
influence has been felt most significantly. I do not think the
presence of a special representative has translated into any broader
political leverage on the part of the EU. That is a common situation
with the EU's various special representatives around the world
in various conflict situations. One could argue the fact that
they do have a fairly low profile politically is part of what
enables them to play that low profile role rather successfully.
I do think the situation exists where at present the special representative
is seen as being another European actor within a rather crowded
field of different European actors rather than being the single
representative of the European Union on the ground.
Q139 Lord Swinfen:
I was wondering whether you thought that the special representative
did have sufficient legal authority, whether he had the relevant
experience and whether he had the political credibility to achieve
what the EU is asking him to do.
Dr Youngs: Personally I would argue that I am
not sure it is a question of his formal competences or political
experience; it is more the judgment that working at a low profile
level can be most productive compounded by the need to take care
to make sure that nothing is done that contravenes the political
will of any European government. I think that is again common
to the situation within which special representatives have to
work in many different conflict situations.
Chairman: Can we move on to the impact
of European instruments.
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