Examination of Witnesses (Questions 181
- 199)
THURSDAY 22 MARCH 2007
MR HUGUES MINGARELLI, MR PATRICK CHILD AND MR HANS
DUYNHOUWER
Q181 Chairman:
We are extremely grateful to you for having found time to see
us this afternoon. When we come and take evidence we normally
take a transcript of it on the assumption that we can use it for
evidence in our report to the House of Lords, but if at any stage
during the discussions you felt there was some area of questioning
where you might be able to speak to us more freely if we were
not taking a formal record and wish to indicate that to us, the
Committee would be quite ready to move into a more informal session.
Mr Child: Welcome to the Commission and welcome
to Brussels. I must firstly apologise very profoundly for the
Commissioner's absence. She very much wanted to meet the Committee
in person but unfortunately she has been preoccupied by the birthday
celebrations of the great European project and therefore is in
Vienna with the celebrations there, but she was very keen that
we meet you and help the Committee with all your questions. Perhaps
I could also briefly introduce the colleagues that I have brought:
Hugues Mingarelli, who is the Director and Acting Deputy General
in DG Relex responsible for the Mediterranean and the Middle East;
and Hans Duynhouwer, who is the Head of Unit in EuropeAid who
has also been working in Jerusalem heading up the TIM until quite
recently and so can bring some very direct experience of that.
Q182 Chairman:
Thank you very much indeed. What I would like to do, Mr Child,
is to start with our questions but first do you have an initial
statement that you would like to make?
Mr Child: I could make a few introductory comments
if that would help the Committee but equally if you prefer to—
Q183 Chairman:
You have seen our questions and I think they probably cover most
of the issues which we would want to raise but if there was anything
else, perhaps we could come back to it at the end. Given recent
developments what steps you feel the European Union should now
take in order to take the peace process forward?
Mr Child: Perhaps I could answer the question
in a slightly more general way. Clearly the European Union and
the Commission have been working for many years in support of
the peace process, both at a political level and through the economic
and technical instruments and policies that we have been developing.
We are a key participant in the Quartet which is the international
community body which is looking after the political process. The
European Union is probably the major donor historically for the
Palestinians and I think that our work in this area is a good
illustration of how the Community's various policy instruments
can be used in an effective and operational way in support of
a very challenging and often very delicate political agenda. I
think it is also a good example of how the EU's various instruments
and policies and institutions are able to articulate and co-ordinate
with each other, notwithstanding the occasional challenges that
we face in agreeing a fully consensual EU policy line on the various
issues that we are dealing with. Coming more specifically to your
question, I just want to mention three historical steps. Before
the Hamas Government was elected I would say that the Community
support for the Palestinian Authority was crucial and fundamental
in keeping the Palestinian Authority alive and helping it to develop
and keeping it as a potential interlocutor in the peace process,
and that was an extremely important contribution Europe was able
to make. Since the elections we have been working in an extremely
difficult and complicated political context but I think that with
the Temporary International Mechanism—about which I am sure
we will want to hear more later—and indeed on which we have
prepared some additional documentation which may be helpful to
the Committee in your work—we have been able to bring assistance
to the Palestinian people at a time when the political constraints
of working with the government have been the ones with which you
are clearly familiar. I think we are now at a very interesting
and important moment with the formation of the National Unity
Government. The visit of the Committee to Brussels now could not
be timed better from that point of view. The Commissioner with
Javier Solana and the Presidency participated in a discussion
among the Quartet earlier in the week. You will have seen the
statement of that exchange and there were further discussions
at the meeting that the Troika had with Secretary Rice in Washington
earlier in the week on how we move forward. We are clearly now
at a point where with the National Unity Government, although
we have to be cautious, the conditions are coming into place where
we can advance the contacts with the non-Hamas members of the
National Unity Government and therefore reengage and think about
the future direction of our assistance, returning to some of the
capacity-building, institution-supporting measures that we have
been engaged in in the past. We cannot go into a huge amount of
detail with you, I suspect, today on the precise nature of what
we will be able to do as events unfold but it is a moment of considerable
opportunity which we have been preparing for for a little while
and which we are certainly keen to take forward.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
Lord Tomlinson?
Q184 Lord Tomlinson:
I gather from that that you are making advance contingency plans
and I presume that these are to cover the possibility of renewed
engagement with the Palestinian Authority if the circumstances
permit. Can you give us some idea of what conditions you think
are likely to be attached to that engagement and how far are your
contingency plans advanced?
Mr Mingarelli: The Quartet very clearly stated
that the degree of our engagement with the new government and
the modalities of this engagement will be dependent on the new
Government meeting the three Quartet principles and that this
new Government will be judged and assessed by its acts and results.
This means that for the time being we have to watch very closely
what is going on and on the basis of the first declaration and
acts of the new Government, our political leaders will decide
on the degree of engagement we can have with the new Government.
There are several scenarios. The first scenario is we are allowed
to go for full engagement with all ministers of the new Government.
This is probably the most optimistic one and this could be done
only if the three Quartet principles are met and the first acts
by the Government indicate that the new Government is willing
to help move towards the peace process. In this case we would
have full engagement. This would mean that we could resume political
contacts with all ministers. If we can resume political contacts
with all ministers we will be in a position to resume traditional
forms of assistance such as budgetary support through a single
account managed by the finance minister and all forms of traditional
assistance, funding of development programmes and projects. This
is the first possibility. The second possibility is that we are
allowed to go for selective engagement, namely to contact the
ministers which belong to Fatah and those which are independent.
Today this is the most likely scenario. In this case we would
have to see how we could shape our delivery mechanisms as regards
our assistance to make sure that all our funds are precisely targeted
to those ministers we want to handle them. Under this scenario
we would probably have to extend our Temporary Interim Mechanism
(TIM) and we would have to look at whether we can bring some kind
of technical assistance to those ministers that we are ready to
handle. The last scenario would be we could not have any kind
of contact with any minister because the first acts of the new
Government lead us to think that that is the best way to proceed.
In this case we would have to make sure that we continue to provide
emergency assistance to the Palestinians so our contingency plans
today are articulated around these three main scenarios.
Q185 Lord Tomlinson:
So do I summarise you correctly then that you have got flexibility
in the way that you are preparing your contingency and that flexibility
could visualise some selective engagement in circumstances less
than the full recognition by the Unity Government of the Quartet
principles?
Mr Mingarelli: You are right, we would be in
a position to deploy again some kind of assistance programme,
were we allowed to go for a selective engagement, which means
that we could have political contacts with non-Hamas ministers.
Having said that, I am not absolutely sure that this is the best
thing we could do because we would introduce a lot of distortions
in the development pattern of Palestine but, once again, it may
be that it is la moins pire des solutions. It is not the
ideal solution.
Q186 Chairman:
Could I ask another question as to how it might not altogether
be ideal. If in fact money is going primarily to Fatah ministries
this also has something to do with the dynamics of Palestine politics
because it looks, as before, that the European Union is biased
in terms of one group of politicians within that and this may
be counter-productive.
Mr Mingarelli: Our purpose would certainly not
be to strengthen any faction against any other faction. This is
not the way that we approach the whole thing. Our aim is to back
the democratic process and not to back "our" democrats;
this is not our approach. Having said that, if we have independent
or Fatah ministers in social ministries, let us say the education
ministry, and we think that there is a need for us to do something
to really improve the way that young Palestinians are trained
and educated, it might be a pity not to use the opportunity we
have to channel assistance through the ministry. The final recipient
would not be the minister; the final recipient would be the young
Palestinians. Assistance might be channelled through a Fatah minister
but at the end of the day the final recipient for us should be
the young Palestinians. Another aspect to which I would like to
draw your attention is all of this is very preliminary thinking.
It might be difficult to provide budgetary support to one single
minister, the funds being fungible. You know perfectly well that
you can provide funds to the health minister but at the end of
the day this might fund activities under another minister, so
it might be useful for us to reflect on other forms of assistance,
for instance bringing in technical assistance where we provide
experts or we transfer know-how, where we are sure about the final
recipient. If you fund rural development programmes by extending
seeds, fertilisers and rural credit to the farmers you know that
you will not fund a minister but you will fund the farmers, so
we will have to reflect on all of these things. Obviously a number
of other parameters will have to be considered such as the security
situation and our delivery capacity. We have many constraints
around us when we are designing our assistance programmes.
Q187 Lord Tomlinson:
Having said all that you not being so doctrinally rigid in relation
to the Quartet principles that you do not visualise circumstances
in which aid could commence?
Mr Mingarelli: We are not rigid people. We try
to be pragmatic and provided we are given a margin for manoeuvre
by our political masters we try to be imaginative.
Q188 Lord Chidgey:
Is it time to move on to the EU's role in the general sense. Mr
Child, when you opened your comments you said that it is a very
good time for us to be here because so many things were happening,
which also meant it is a very bad time for us to be here because
you are so busy, which we do appreciate!
Mr Child: No, the Commissioner is out of the
country!
Q189 Lord Chidgey:
— And the way you have set the scene for us brings us particularly
to the question I want to ask you about the EU's role. Should
the EU take on a more overtly political role in bringing the parties
to the conflict back to the negotiating process? Can and should
the EU play the role of an honest broker? You are inferring that
we are almost there on that but I will come back to you on that.
Finally, could the EU now take the lead by developing a staged
plan of action with a defined end goal?
Mr Child: I think that you are right, my answer
is that the EU is already very politically active in this area.
No subject is more frequently discussed at the monthly meetings
of foreign ministers and it is probably the topic which European
ministers and the institutions spend one of their most active
and energetic amounts of time on. If what you mean by taking a
more political role however is should the EU try to break away
from the consensus in the international community and somehow
pursue a distinct and autonomous policy outside the Quartet to
do something different—
Lord Chidgey: Can I take that point,
if I may.
Q190 Chairman:
Just let us take this point.
Mr Child: I was going to say that I do not think
that is the way that we should go because I think that if you
look at the overall political dynamics in the Middle East, the
Quartet brings together the right group of actors. I am also very
encouraged by the prospect which has now been agreed by the Quartet
earlier this week to hold their next meeting in the region and
also with the so-called Arab Quartet of leading countries in the
region, who must inevitably play a part in the solution. So I
think that my answer to the question is that we are playing a
very active political role as the European Union, with the Commission
playing its part in supporting that of course, and I am pleased
that you are seeing Javier Solana tomorrow, who I am sure will
be able to give you his own insights into all that, but I would
not want there to be any confusion about the role being somehow
distinct from the collective effort of the international community
because I think the worst thing that could happen would be that
the international community starts to split apart and then the
future would be a lot less certain.
Q191 Lord Chidgey:
In our evidence we have taken already in various sessions, one
of the things that struck has us is how people from the region
have talked very strongly in terms of the importance of the United
States and Israel, and to a degree Russia, but often they see
the EU's role in the Quartet as the funding agency and providing
funds to the Palestinians, which clearly we have heard again this
morning. I just wondered when I asked you that question about
the EU's overtly political role whether you in Brussels see this
as a problem, that the role of the EU in the region is not seen
as a key political broker but more of a funding agency to try
and keep the thing together, in comparison with the role of the
US in its relationship with Israel?
Mr Child: I do not think that is entirely fair.
Clearly we have been providing the lion's share of the financial
assistance to the Palestinians recently which has been an extremely
important contribution to the political dynamic of the region
and that of course gives us a degree of leverage and legitimacy
also over the political process. I just give you one encouraging
example which is, I think, illustrative of the European contribution.
There was a discussion in the Council of Ministers in the summer
of last year on the Quartet principles and what we would be looking
to see in the programme of a possible future, reshuffled Palestinian
government would be the type of language that was used such as
"respect", "committed", "reflected"—there
are various words used—and the Council of Ministers here
came down to a wording which was then subsequently picked up in
the wording of the Quartet statement that immediately followed.
I think that illustrates on what was an absolutely central question
at the time what European contributions can be to those discussions,
and the fact that the positions that the EU representatives in
the Quartet take is backed by the full solidarity of the Member
States of the European Union also gives us a strength and an authority
in those discussions which is very useful. I recognise I did not
answer the final part of your question about did we need to have
an end goal, that sort of question. There I think I come back
to the importance of the Roadmap which I am sure others have talked
to you about, we are absolutely behind the Roadmap as a blueprint
for the solution. It has the backing of the Quartet and there
are no other miracle solutions out there and we need to work single-mindedly
in support of that.
Q192 Lord Lea of Crondall:
Some of the Arab states implied to us that there is some asymmetry
that needs to be corrected by a stronger role for the EU and their
argument about asymmetry is that it is undoubtedly a fact that
the United States has a special relationship with Israel, and
indeed that is freely said. Do you think that we have now moved
to, as you are implying indeed Mr Child, a degree of symmetry
or 100% symmetry where no-one operates outside the framework of
the Quartet, all traffic is via the Quartet, or do you think that
we still need, if we are aiming at a picture of symmetry, to make
sure that all the major players, and certainly the EU and the
US, share in this concept of symmetry, so long as there is a balance,
and it does not have to be the same modus operandi obviously,
but the different modus operandi must somehow balance?
Mr Child: Well, I am not quite sure what angle
to come into this question. It is clearly something that we have
been active on, as have others in the international community,
including the Americans, to have very active contacts with not
just the Palestinians themselves (who of course are a key partner
in this) but also with the Arab states in the wider region. Mrs
Ferrero-Waldner is frequently in contact with Mr Mussa, the Secretary-General
of the Arab League, and we follow very closely the work of the
Arab League in putting their suggestions forward and have been,
I think, extremely supportive of the contributions that other
Arab states have made to the process. The recent role that Saudi
Arabia has played in bringing the parties together in the Mecca
agreement and getting the National Unity Government in place is
something that we also strongly welcome, including in the recent
statement of the European Council, which you will have seen, and
we are looking forward to the forthcoming submit of the Arab League
which we hope will further provide an opportunity for the Arab
states to give their political support and encouragement to the
various actors in the process. I think it is too simplistic to
get drawn into the dichotomy that the Americans look after Israel
and the Europeans do not look after the Arabs enough. I think
they are all active in all relationships and the fact that the
international community is pulling in the same direction but with
a lively debate with the actors within the international community—and
maybe this is the answer you are looking to for your question—helps
us to build the necessary consensus.
Q193 Lord Crickhowell:
Could I pick up a particular point on that. You began to touch
on one point that I was going to come in with a supplementary
on which is the relationship to what the Arabs are doing at this
very moment. I hope that the Europeans take a very positive connect
with that, but the question also deals with abiding by commitments,
and we have heard several times of the financial contributions
to the Palestinians but actually there have been very substantial
contributions financially to Israel as well, and some views have
been expressed to us that we should perhaps insist or make sure
that that money is not being used on infrastructure and so on
which is helping to block off the commercial and economic development
in the area. Are we being as firm in ensuring that the Israelis
abide by their commitments? We have talked a lot about Fatah and
Hamas and so on as to how we can play that card. Is there an aspect
of the relationship with Israel that ought to be considered?
Mr Child: I think that in terms of financial
assistance we really are not active in at all the same way with
the Israelis and so the question of whether Community funding
is being somehow misused or the conditions that we are applying
to Community funding for Israel are different does not arise in
the same way as with the Palestinians. I think it is important
more generally—and maybe this is the more important question—that
we are seen to be even-handed and clear in ensuring that the conditions
that we apply to our partners in the region are being properly
and even-handedly respected. However, the comparison between the
conditions we are putting on the money for the Palestinians and
for Israel does not really apply in that sense.
Q194 Chairman:
On the other hand, presumably the way in which we deal with issues
like rules of origin and non-respect of the EU/Israel Association
Agreement are ways in which our relationship with Israel could
perhaps be re-examined?
Mr Child: We have had a long-standing discussion
with the Israeli authorities in the past about this whole question
of rules of origin which, after much intense diplomatic effort
including by Peter Mandelson as Trade Commissioner, was successful
in overcoming some of the abuses as we perceived them of the agreement.
The other aspect in which we are very strong and consistent in
putting pressure on Israel is the problem of the blocked tax revenues
which must ultimately be the only viable solution to the economic
needs of the Palestinian Territories. The sort of assistance which
we have been providing through the TIM, although vitally important
at this difficult political time for the Palestinian population,
is manifestly unsustainable over the long term. The only sustainable
solution is for Israel to open up the flows of tax revenues which
are legitimately due to the Palestinian people and territories
for their economic activity.
Q195 Chairman:
And also presumably to open up the opportunities for people within
Gaza and the West Bank to be able to export their products and
to be able to trade and to build up their economy, which has been
relatively restricted in recent months?
Mr Child: Indeed.
Q196 Chairman:
Could I just go back before we go on to something you said about
the Roadmap because although obviously the Roadmap has been at
the centre of what a lot of people have been looking at, we did
hear the American Secretary of State talk about some sort of new
political horizons, and we have had people looking at the Arab
initiative of 2002, and I wonder how those all come together and
whether the Roadmap necessarily has quite such a centrality as
it did at some time in the past?
Mr Child: The Roadmap remains an extremely important
element. The difficulty that we have had is that the concept of
parallel movement by both sides on the tracks in the Roadmap never
really got beyond first base and so the question, I suppose, today
is in the search for a new political horizon are there new ideas,
new ways of encouraging the parties to take the first steps on
the road in the Roadmap towards what we all agree as being the
goal of a two-state solution, a viable Palestinian state living
side-by-side with Israel.
Q197 Lord Crickhowell:
The argument that has been put to us is that the trouble with
the Roadmap is that if you have do not have this really very firm
end view every time there is a minor episode along the way it
is taken as an excuse for stopping and you cannot go any further.
Somehow if you have got a very clear vision of what is coming
at the end, you put on one side perhaps the episode, however unpleasant
it may appear at the time, and try and come back to having got
towards the real objective further down the road.
Mr Child: But I think this is very much in the
minds of the members of the Quartet. This is one of the central
questions that we now need to begin to address, and certainly
the scenario that you describe is very familiar and the setbacks
that can arise have cluttered our way many times in the past,
so it is something which we are encouraging reflection about.
There are also the meetings that are taking place, we hope with
ever greater frequency, between Prime Minister Olmert and President
Abbas which may contribute even more than the ideas coming from
the outside from the international community.
Q198 Chairman:
I wonder if we could move on to some of the institutional issues
and indeed the issues of relations between different institutions
within the Union but also relations between the Union and its
Member States. One is concerned as to how far the Union does speak
with one voice and in particular as a Committee we have looked
previously in a report we did on Europe and the world last year
at methods of trying to improve coherence and co-ordination of
European Union policies and instruments. I think we would be very
glad to hear about the mechanisms which are in place to ensure
the co-ordination of the variety of European Union presences on
the ground and in particular through things like the Governance
Strategy Group and other ways the opportunities to bring together
the work of the Union but also of its Member States who sometimes,
we feel, may not be as well co-ordinated as they might be. I wonder
if you could tell us something about this.
Mr Mingarelli: Well, it is no secret that there
is some difficulty for our Member States in coming to a common
position on the most contentious issue in this area. This is a
major handicap to the EU being a major actor, to come back to
one of your earlier questions. Nevertheless, we have tried to
develop and put in place a number of instruments in order to try
to draw our Member States to a common position as often as possible.
First of all, as you know, our foreign ministers discuss this
issue every month and this is a way to really bring their views
and opinions closer and closer. Then the EU appointed some years
ago the EU Special Representative Marc Otte. This was an important
role in helping the EU to speak with one voice. In addition to
that, we have our delegations in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv who
organise frequent co-ordination meetings with all our Member States
to make sure that on the ground there is strong co-ordination.
In addition to that there is the so-called EuroMed process where
we have a number of meetings in different formats in various sectors
where we meet and make sure that we exchange views and papers
between Member States on most issues that we have to handle in
the region. There are a lot of entities under which we try to
co-ordinate our views at a technical level and at an expert level
in order to narrow the differences at the political level, but
it is true that there is still a long way to go in order to get
a strong and firm and united EU position on the most contentious
issues.
Q199 Chairman:
But even if there was agreement on the issues, when we are come
to the provision of aid and capacity building and development
of this sort, how far do we have satisfactory co-ordination between
Member States' policies because the Member States spend a good
deal of the money which comes from the European Union directly
as distinct from money which is transferred.
Mr Mingarelli: We have a number of co-ordination
mechanisms. We have first of all the TIM, which has been a way
to channel funds not only from the Community budget but from bilateral
assistance as well. There is another liaison committee in Jerusalem
which has been used as well to try to have an in-depth discussion
on policies and strategies. Our delegation plays a role in co-ordinating
the main donors. We have meetings organised under World Bank auspices
in order to co-ordinate, so I do not think that the main problem
as regards co-ordination comes when we speak about assistance;
the main difficulties of co-ordination are political co-ordination,
not assistance.
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