Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 234)
THURSDAY 22 MARCH 2007
DR JANA HYBÁŠKOVÁ
Q220 Lord Lea of Crondall:
That is very interesting, thank you very much.
Dr HybáŠková: I would rather
go on if I may on EU/Israeli bilateral relations because this
will shed a little light—
Chairman: Would you mind if we just put
two more questions on the political role and then we will certainly
move on to EU/Israel relations. We certainly would like to continue
discussing them.
Q221 Lord Crickhowell:
Before I ask the question on the paper I was struck by your view
that the structural relationship was wrong and you would like
it to be more organisational and technical and less political,
yet one of the criticisms which has been made is that basically
the EU has concentrated on giving money and support and supervising
elections but has not played a major political role and that it
should be able to play a more important political role. The Middle
East situation is nothing if not political. How can Europe really
play a significant role if it is not political?
Dr HybáŠková: I might be
challenging that. If it is political in the way I see then it
is okay. Otherwise being a Middle East expert—and I graduated
from Cairo University and I spent part of my life there—I
really would rather see less politics and more effectiveness based
on real knowledge of the region and better-tailored politics.
Q222 Lord Crickhowell:
I was going to ask if Europe had a balanced role and can it play
the role of an honest broker but you have already suggested that
it has not got balance, so should the EU take a stronger stance
on some issues and, if so, what should they be? What would you
like them to do?
Dr HybáŠková: What I would
like Europe to do is—in a way, you are right and again this
would be answered in EU/Israel because this is a specific example
where we can see how technical things can be and how structured
they can be. Speaking about the broader MEPP (and that means the
Arab/Israeli conflict) and here I know that I step on a very hot—
Lord Lea of Crondall: Potato?
Lord Crickhowell: Coal?
Q223 Chairman:
Sensitive topic?
Dr HybáŠková:—And this
is a complicated construct but we from new Europe have the experience
that viable and sustainable peace can be reached only when it
is supported by democratic decisions. Only democratic states are
able to come to having peaceful relations with their neighbours.
This is my reading of the situation. You can have an autocratic
regime which for certain reasons decides to have peaceful relations
for 20 years with some entity because it gives certain advantage
but genuine peaceful cohabitation and co-existence should be based
on democratic support and capacities of populations. Therefore
even though it is not fashionable nowadays—and I went through
Iraq and I was in Basra and I think I have evidence to say what
I say—I still think that democratisation is a prerequisite
of sustainable, peaceful stability in the Middle East. Because
we have—and I share the responsibility—mis-managed
the situation in Iraq it does not allow us to say that it is better
to have an autocratic 10 or 15-year settlement rather than going
for democratisation because we cannot handle democratisation right
now and therefore let us forget about it. What we would achieve
is Mubarak's Egypt which would live in peaceful co-existence with
Israel, and call it peace for the next 10 or 15 years. Maybe it
is better than going for the democratisation of Egypt right now
because this could really create a mess in the region, but I do
not think that this is a matter of democratisation; this is more
a matter of our inability to really support democratisation. This
is really the question for me. So I think that where Europe can
play a much better role is in first of all supporting educational
systems, striving for presence in public space in Syria, Lebanon
and Egypt, going much more clearly to media space and teaching
democracy and encouraging a slow democratisation process based
on education of the civil population than on military activity.
This is where I think we should play a much more vivid and clear
role, and we do not do it. I disagree with the fact that two weeks
ago we disbursed €628 million to Egypt as support for an
action plan with Egypt because if you look at democratisation,
human rights and soft security issues, it does not support European
interests, so it was a gesture: "We need stability with you,
we need to talk with you, so we will pay you more than half a
billion euros," and I disagree. I disagree as well as the
head of the Israeli delegation because if there is a key player
now in the whole process it is Egypt and Egypt simply does not
want anything related to Hamas to come because of obvious Muslim
brotherhood relationships. According to all the information, I
have Mr Solana is not playing his role in one way, he is playing
a very dubious role, and Egypt is playing a very dubious role
in what is called the Palestinian game, and this is really not
what we should support. That is point one. Point two: promising
the Golan Heights to Mr Bashar al-Assad is something which I cannot
even comment on. Please, if you see Solana's people tomorrow give
them our best regards from the European Parliament but we really
were astonished. We organised here two months ago a public hearing
on Syria, having gathered more than 100 people from all around
on this particular issue. Syria is a very important piece of the
cake, and we have to talk to the Syrians, we have to engage the
Syrians, but in a very intelligent way. This is what I want to
say: the way Solana engages Syria is only political and political
in a way which is not based on any analytical thinking in my opinion.
The same goes for Saudi Arabia now because Saudi Arabia due to
the fact we have put Egypt on a shelf is becoming a very important
player in the game and Europe is absolutely unable to do anything
with Saudi Arabia in its role. I would even criticise the working
and technical structure because I know that the EU mission in
Riyadh only has four diplomats currently and in Nairobi we have
about 100 staff members in the EU embassy and the EU mission.
In Riyadh we have only four diplomats as the European Union, which
is crazy. There is a set-up of different things which we can have
in the region instead of flying in and making political visits
and having photo opportunities with the leaders. I call for reality
based on real assessment. Sorry!
Q224 Lord Tomlinson:
Before I ask the question I was going to you, can I pick up one
question; you mentioned the round table on Syria. If you have
produced a report on that round table, it might be very helpful
if your secretariat could let ours have a copy of it. The last
question on the broad political role—and I understand your
impatience to get onto EU/Israel relations- you have emphasised
the Quartet conditions for recognition and as a consequence of
this there is the continuation of bypassing the Palestinian Unity
Government and using the Temporary International Mechanism. Do
you think that that will further weaken the Palestinian administration?
Are we possibly moving towards a failed state situation in Palestine
and, if so, what should we be doing to reverse that situation?
Dr HybáŠková: Yesterday we
had a hearing with representatives of the World Bank on how exactly
the financial structure is shaped in Palestine and it was formidable
because they have a kind of a structure which according to political
need shifts finance from the ministry of finance to the presidential
office and back to the ministry of finance and back to the presidential
office. This is what you call bypassing because sometimes it goes
to Mohammed Abbas's office and now it will go to Salam Fayyad's
office but the rest has not changed.
Q225 Lord Tomlinson:
But it is actually bypassing the Palestinian Unity Government
as such?
Dr HybáŠková: My reading
is that all that we have with Palestine is a PLO agreement and
what we need, due to the particularity of the Oslo Process, is
to strengthen the structure which is signed under our treaties,
which is with the PLO. This is where I think Europe does not play
any important role and a couple of us knowing the situation have
tried to talk to Fatah people to ask them to give one more seat
to Hamas. Hamas has the full right to be the leader in the PLO.
It is not true that Hamas does not want to go to the steering
committee or to the central committee of the PLO, they want to,
but they want one more seat than they have been given and this
is where the situation is complicated. So I think we should be
more strict with them and say, "Guys, the old days are over
and you have to open up the PLO to Hamas representation or better
representation of the political parties of justice and reform."
Once this is done then we can have this being bound by the agreements
with the PLO and we can maybe get somewhere on stage two of the
Roadmap, if this is the reading. So I do not think we are bypassing
it because we are not obliged to support this entity. We support
them on clear humanitarian need but the way it is said that we
have to and we did something where we are not fulfilling our duties,
I strongly disagree here. Speaking about the TIM and about administration
and about a failed state, failed states is a phenomenon in the
Middle East which I am very much afraid we have to learn how to
deal with. We Europeans are very progressive in our thinking and
for centuries we have seen history as development and therefore
destructuring of states is something that is a totally grey area
for us in our thinking. The Arab identity is gone and what we
have is an Islamic identity and with Islamic identity we are really
coming to the fact that law is only what allows Muslims to be
good Muslims. That is out of this frame and it is irrelevant.
It is not hostile but it is irrelevant. In a way, an independent
state which is not a state of caliphate is simply irrelevant to
the concept that law is what allows ummah to live like ummah.
I think we have the same sort of situation in Lebanon, in Afghanistan,
in Iraq, in Somalia and in Palestine. I am very much afraid about
how we can deal with this situation because we do not have the
capacity building. We can talk about nation-building in Afghanistan,
we can talk about nation-building in Somalia, but we do not know
how to do it. This is one of the things where if you had the research
capacity and made the effort to think about how to deal with failed
Islamic entities where no-one wants to create the state and what
our role in these extremely unfamiliar situations is, it would
be really beneficial to all of us. This is where I see a role
where we can support education or health care but it is not a
structuralistic approach; what we do is crisis management, it
is not a nation-building process, and this is the problem.
Chairman: Can we move on to EU/Israel
relations and I am going to ask Lord Chidgey to come in.
Q226 Lord Chidgey:
You have already given us some marvellous insights into the way
the EU could be addressing this.
Dr HybáŠková: Very much my
own views.
Q227 Lord Chidgey:
Of course, that is understood and taken as read. I do not know
where to start really but I want to pick up firstly in a formal
way and ask you a little more about your views on the EU's short-termism
and over-political role because we want you to summarise your
view on how one would characterise the EU's dialogue and relations
with Israel concerning the Middle East peace process. You have
already mentioned that you feel there is a lack of balance but
do you expect the European Neighbourhood policy to provide a basis
for the EU to engage more intensively with Israel on the MEPP?
I will ask a supplementary after that, if I may.
Dr HybáŠková: Not directly
but indirectly. This is something that I have tried to do from
the very beginning when I came here. Direct political talks are
I cannot say 100% blocked but they are blocked and dealings between
Madame Waldner and Madame Livni—it is not really a successful
story. It is also due to the situation in Israel and due to Olmert
and Livni—and I am not blaming one side or the other side—and
given previous set-ups between Israel and the EU, I think that
it was quite a good thing to concentrate on the action plan because
the action plan is a cookbook from A to Z, but you can pick up
the moments when you really can go on and the Israeli decision
to go to internal markets and the Israeli decision to slowly but
surely go for harmonisation with acquis simply bring Israel closer
to Europe. This is an enormously positive thing which can happen
and happens with no politicians mentioning it really, so it is
good that they do not mention it! For instance, the Israeli interest
in having the same public procurement system as Europe, the fact
that Israel wants more co-operation now in climate change, the
environment and IT, and an Israeli presence in the Seventh Framework
Programme, as well as a presence in the security priorities of
the Seventh Framework Programme, which is an extremely important
thing. These things can be done and are done. Israel made a mistake
only recently at the last EU Association Council because they
wanted to set up a reflection group on how far they can go politically
in relations with Europe and this was not wise because they are
better going from DG to DG and doing specific steps here and here
and here and here, not preparing for full convergence with Europe
but preparing their stock exchange for dealing with Europe. All
these things can be done and there is enormous pressure from the
Israeli business community on these matters and this is very,
very, very useful thing and we have to use this pressure. There
is enormous pressure from Israeli academics to have better relations
with Europe because they all complain that the educational system
is falling down to the European level. I am sorry to say that!
With due respect to your country, it was more speaking about our
systems in central Europe rather than your educational system!
They are interested in all kinds of IT collaboration and co-operation,
so I see a lot of fields where we can enhance and advance relations
and the opportunity is here. The only block which I fear is that
the EU now because of this preamble with Turkey is extremely sensitive
to any enhancing of institutional co-operation and collaboration
with anyone and therefore all the DGs which are being approached
by the Israelis are saying, "Wait a moment, then the Turks
and the Ukrainians and the Moroccans will come to us and we do
not want them to come." I am involved in how to find a way
where Israelis can get past this mental block of "My God,
we are not having Morocco and the Ukraine in the same boat,"
and this is the problem.
Q228 Lord Chidgey:
This comes back to a point that you very interestingly made about
democracy and the need for democracy before you can have peace
in stable societies. Israel will say, "We are the only democracy
in the region." You make a very interesting comparison with
Turkey which of course is a secular Muslim democracy. You also
made a very interesting analysis of the problem with democracy
under an Islamist political regime, and that brings us back to
North Africa and Algeria where they voted in favour of the Islamic
Party which said the first thing we are going to do is abolish
elections. Interesting! Can I just say this: must we accept that
whilst democracy is per se the great goal to strive for in peace
and stability in the world it is not relevant in the short to
medium term in trying to achieve a peace settlement in the Middle
East, particularly between Israel and Palestine?
Dr HybáŠková: To be very
candid here, I supported strongly the Iraqi operation and I did
it not because of WMDs, even though I said that no-one could seriously
exclude them the day before operations started, but because of
my belief in the necessity for the democratisation of Iraq. I
participated in what was called the Nasiriyah Conference and Baghdad
Conference, which was the first gathering of Iraqis. There used
to be an Iraqi National Council and there should have been a conference
of the Iraqi National Council and for certain reasons it did not
go as we thought and then the first pan-Iraqi conference happened
in Nasiriyah in March/April 2003. All Iraqis gathered there and
more than half of them were obviously of religious origin and
the Westerners, including your people, our people and US people
when they saw that half of them were imams or mosque guys they
got scared and this is where the difficulties started. I am not
sure but my feeling now is inclining to come to the point that
for so many years we did not act in the public space. The only
public space we have kept in the Middle East is that which is
occupied by mosques and the only natural leaders will be imams
because for 20 years they were the only ones who had the ability
to command.
Q229 Lord Chidgey:
That brings me to my final question.
Dr HybáŠková: I think that
for a certain intermediate period we have two possibilities, either
to keep autocratic regimes and work on their internal restructuring
or to go through a certain way of opening up and bringing in Islamists
and I am not sure myself which of these two ways is better and
I do not think that anyone can give you the answer these days.
Q230 Lord Chidgey:
Do you believe that you can foster Palestinian democracy in the
absence of a state?
Dr HybáŠková: Yes I do because
we still cannot have a state because of one obvious reason: even
if we speak about the borders of 1967 this is a very bad message
to the Palestinians because this will mean having the West Bank
and Gaza split. Europe is not very wise in sending this message
because this means that we would keep these two entities split.
When we speak about a viable state we need to change the situation
there. Therefore I think to get to a state it is a really long,
long way and we have such institutions like Panorama—this
is one of the democratic groupings in Palestine for instance—where
I think we have to support them and work with them and try to
enhance them as much as we can.
Q231 Lord Tomlinson:
If I can just ask you a question—and I do apologise because
I am going to have to leave a little bit before the meeting finishes—in
the process of EU relations with Israel what influence has been
exerted by the EU to encourage Israel to respect the commitments
that it has under the Association Agreements? There I am thinking
particularly human rights, co-operation with the Palestinians
and rules of origin. What prospects, if any, do you think exist
for progress on the EU human rights dialogue, and perhaps in that
context you might also just touch on your EPP delegation with
the Israeli Knesset and how you believe the pressures you might
bring there contribute to the peace process in the region.
Dr HybáŠková: I will start
answering the third point of the first part of your question which
is the rules of origin. I think that there was quite substantive
work done by the Commission. Mr Alan Seater really has done marvellous
work in this respect trying to bring the EU/Israel/Palestine triangle
part of the national action plans together and to work in this
direction. This is exactly where I see the Commission being very
helpful and useful and I think that progress was made there. Concerning
human rights and the other commitments of Israel, human rights
is an issue which is very, very largely and deeply held by the
European Parliament. There are many groups and many personalities
who have a lot of contacts to Israelis and Palestinians and all
these Geneva groupings. There is not a week in this house without
hearing us about this particular issue, the rights of Palestinian
citizens or Arab citizens of Palestinian origin in Israel. As
chair of the delegation I try to be as professional as I can and
balance it but on the one hand we have Marco Pannella and Pierre
Schapira and on the other we have Marine le Pen and we have the
Poles and we have people from all around and to accommodate all
their interests is not always very easy. Nevertheless we have
a visit by four or five members of the Knesset at the end of April
to Strasbourg and I think it was the request of Madame Mastenbroek,
and she is not particularly for opening the issue of the rights
of Arab Israeli citizens, so we will have quite some time debating
this issue. Certainly when we visited Israel we met a lot of NGOs
and we went to East Jerusalem and we even had some press conferences
around these issues, so we tried to influence. We met the minister
for Palestinian prisoners when we were with Borrell in Gaza and
we engaged in some debates there. So I think that more members
of my delegation are experts on human rights rather than being
technical experts on harmonisation of the acquis and the internal
mechanisms. I know these things because I was part of the Czech
negotiating team so, funnily enough, we know the technicalities
of the EU better than maybe some old Members who have never needed
to learn about the process of harmonisation, but since I went
through the harmonisation of acquis in my own country I know it
better. So I can at least talk about sanitary and veterinary staff
and about accumulation of origin and free trade and these things
better than some others do here. So they do the political work
and we as a delegation get involved as well in the issue of kidnapped
Israeli soldiers which is not that easy. We have signed and sent
a letter to Haniya asking him to provide us with information about
the well-being of Gilad Shalit. I see the core issue not in the
wall because I think the defence of a wall according to different
geographical areas might be psychologically difficult for both
sides. I think security wise it works but where I see the core
of the problem are settlements. This is the core of the issue
and when we speak about the 1967 borders, it is more or less acceptable,
and I do not speak about settlements in the top hills in outposts
in the West Bank; I speak about the Ramallah and Rasen and this
is where I see the real core issues related to water, related
to transportation, related to demography and this is where we
must have some system for telling the Israelis that this is insecure
for their own future and this is where they will get into trouble
trying to get security for their settlements.
Q232 Lord Lea of Crondall:
Has anybody suggested a joint Israel/Palestinian commission on
some of these questions?
Dr HybáŠková: We met once
as the Palestinian and Israeli Commission together. This was a
great success. It was the first time in the history of this house
that these two delegations met.
Q233 Lord Lea of Crondall:
No, I mean the Israelis and the Palestinians. Has this got to
wait for the success of the Middle East peace propose or could
it not be a building block for us to build on some joint work
between the Israelis and Palestinians on some of these civic questions
more than we do?
Dr HybáŠková: This is just
my ad hoc assumption. With the Kadima Party there was a certain
period of time when I think they were ready to go and talk to
the Palestinians on working groups. I think they were keen to
do it but then with all that followed and their quite naive assumptions
on what will happen one day with withdrawal from Gaza, and then
what happened in Gaza and all these things, they now have a block
and Israelis are more and more blocked and not be able to talk
to the Palestinians, and again I think that it is very much our
role to try to tell them that even though it is extremely difficult
and complicated they have to talk to the Palestinians, and we
try to tell them as much as we can.
Q234 Chairman:
We asked to have a chance to talk to you for an hour. You have
very generously given your hour but before we go, is there anything
which we should have asked you and we have not asked you that
you would like to say to us in closing? There is no obligation,
you have told us so much, but is there anything that we have left
out? If you think of something afterwards and you perhaps send
a written note to us, we would be very glad to incorporate it
with our evidence. Could I on behalf of our Committee say that
we have never had a witness before us previously who has not had
sight of the questions before we started asking them and I do
not think many of us have met many of the members of this Parliament
who come from the new Member States, and I think we would all
of us want to say that we are extraordinarily impressed by the
way in which you have been able to help us today in thinking through
what are some very difficult questions, and I think we appreciate
the quality of the analysis which you have brought, and I am sure
that the Parliament needs to have people with your skills. I hope
they are all like you! Thank you again very much and we hope we
may have a chance perhaps to see you some time in London. If you
were ever in London we would be very pleased to have a chance
to see you there as well.
Dr HybáŠková: Thank you very
much. I would like to make some small point. At different times
in my life I have had the extraordinary chance to work with your
FCO people, for example at the very beginning in the year 1990
when we knew nothing. I became Director of the Middle East Department
when I was 26 years old and there were a number of diplomats who
really helped us tremendously in those days before anyone else
came to us. I think that your people and the US people were amongst
the first if not the very first who helped us to structure things
in the very beginning in 1991-1992. You helped us tremendously
and guided us through many things. Czech co-operation with you
in Yugoslavia was something all our nation is well aware of and
for me recently collaboration with the European Ambassador and
your people in Kuwait was an extraordinary help—extraordinary
help—because we had to collaborate with Central Command,
which for us tiny Czechs was an extremely daunting experience,
and without your people, be it military or be it FCO, it would
have been an enormously difficult situation for me to go through.
Then when we were deciding how to approach Iraq, we decided on
very clear analysis that it would be better for us to be posted
to the UK sector than the US sector simply because of the communication
and collaboration. I have had the opportunity to work with your
people in Basra and to see the enormous heroism of your young
people in the medical service for instance—girls of 20 or
21 serving there—so I really appreciate the work of your
nation in the region. Thank you.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
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