There is not one but two urgent needs. In order to confront Vladimir Putin’s imperial nostalgia and the United States’ refocusing on Asia, in a word, in order to take its destiny into its own hands and assert itself as an autonomous political power on the international stage, the European Union must not only arm Ukraine and rearm itself.
It must also make its voice heard in the Middle East, where politically it counts for nothing even though economically it is everything. A third of Israel’s imports come from the EU, Israel’s biggest trading partner and also the biggest donor of aid to Palestine, which would simply not be able to pay its civil servants without the 27. The European Union is the essential partner of these two peoples, but even though it defends Israel’s right to existence and security and Palestine’s right to create its own state, and even though it has adopted a position in this conflict that is as balanced as it is consistent, it simply talks, without taking any initiative likely to advance peace.
The Union does not even seem to mind the possibility that this war could destabilise the Union itself by igniting the Maghreb and the Mashreq, and that is not all. Worse still, its passivity has already led to accusations from Africa, Asia and even Latin America that it is siding with the stronger, with Israel against Palestine.
It is losing allies and old friendships in the process. It devalues the respect for human rights and the rule of law of which it is the most vigilant guarantor. Above all, it is losing diplomatic and political support that would be extremely valuable in its defence of Ukraine, international law and the stability of the European continent. At a time when Vladimir Putin has embarked on an enterprise to reconquer a lost empire, a pure and simple colonial war, the European Union is, in a word, offering him the opportunity to bring former colonised countries over to his side.
This cannot and must not continue. Everything must now lead the EU to take the lead in the battle for a two-state solution, because it has the economic levers to do so, and because this crisis puts it just as much at risk as Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. It is time for the Union to move from words to deeds, to demand that both the Palestinians and the Israelis return to the negotiating table and to say loud and clear that the continuation of its aid to the former and of its Association Agreement with the latter is now conditional on their good faith in the quest for a settlement.
This need is so obvious that the appeal that three other MEPs and I launched at the end of January has already attracted 53 signatures in the European Parliament. Things are moving, because if the Union wants to stop being seen as a humanitarian organisation, ensure victory for Ukraine and assert itself as a powerful force, it must urgently show its muscles wherever it can, give the Ukrainians the means to win and speak as clearly to Hamas and Benjamin Netanyahu as it does to Vladimir Putin.
