Israel and the European Union
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The accession of Israel to the European Union refers to a possible future development in the EU-Israel relations.
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[edit] The EU's relations with Israel
Currently, the EU-Israel Association Agreement forms the legal basis governing relations between Israel and the EU, modelled on the network of Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Agreements between the Union and its partners in the southern flank of the Mediterranean Sea.
The agreement with Israel incorporates free trade arrangements for industrial goods, concessionary arrangements for trade in agricultural products (a new agreement here entered into force in 2004), and opens up the prospect for greater liberalisation of trade in services, and farm goods, from 2005. The Association Agreement was signed in Brussels on 20 November 1995, and entered into force on 1 June 2000, following ratification by the 15 Member States parliaments, the European Parliament and the Knesset. It replaces the earlier Co-operation Agreement of 1975.
The Association Agreement established two main bodies for the EU-Israel dialogue. The EU-Israel Association Council (held at ministerial level) and the EU-Israel Association Committee (held at the level of senior officials) meet at regular intervals, to discuss political and economic issues as well as bilateral or regional co-operation.
[edit] Support to Israel from the Euro-Med Partnership
Israel because of its high national income is not eligible for bilateral funding under MEDA. It has however been involved in a wide variety of Euro-Med regional programmes funded under MEDA:
- Young Israelis participate in youth exchange programmes with their European and Mediterranean counterparts under the Euro-Med Youth Action Programme.
- Israeli filmmakers have benefited from funding and training under the Euro-Med Audiovisual Programme.
- Israeli universities participate in the FEMISE forum of economic institutes while chambers of commerce and employers associations have participated in programmes like UNIMED and ArchiMedes.
- Bodies like the Israel Antiquities Authority participate in Euromed Cultural Heritage.
[edit] Co-operation
Agreements on Scientific and Technical Co-operation between the European Community and the State of Israel.
Israel was the first non-European country to be associated to the European Community’s Framework Programme for Research and Technical Development (RTD). Israel's special status is the result of its high level of scientific and research capability and the dense network of longstanding relations in scientific and technical co-operation between Israel and the EU.
The European Commission signed an agreement with Israel in July 2004 allowing for its participation in the EU’s Galileo project for a Global Navigation Satellite System.
[edit] Trade Relations
Trade between the EU and Israel is conducted on the basis of the Association Agreement. The European Union is Israel’s major trading partner. In 2004 the total volume of bilateral trade (excluding diamonds) came to over €15 billion. Thirty three per cent of Israel’s exports went to the EU and almost 40% of its imports came from the EU.
Total EU (25 Member States) trade with Israel rose from €19.4 billion in 2003 to 21.36 in 2004. EU exports to Israel reached €12.75 billion in 2004, while imports from Israel were €8.6 billion. The trade deficit with Israel was €4.15 billion in the EU’s favour in 2004.
Under the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement, the EU of 25 Member States and Israel have free trade in industrial products. The two sides have granted each other significant trade concessions for certain agricultural products, in the form of tariff reduction or elimination, either within quotas or for unlimited quantities.
[edit] Support to the Middle East Peace Process
The European Union attaches great importance to the finding of a just and final settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict and supports initiatives to further the peace process, through the role of the Special Envoy for the Middle East Peace Process (Marc Otte), through its involvement in support of the Quartet (EU, US, Russia, UN), its programmes of humanitarian and other assistance for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, by virtue of the commitments entered into by Israel, the PA and the EU in the European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plans, as well as through programmes for civil society and people to people contacts.[1]
[edit] Possible future developments in the EU-Israel relations
The EU and Israel already have very strong ties. In the future, these ties may remain in the same framework or made much stronger. Due to political, historical and cultural reasons, it has been suggested that in the future Israel could either gain an European Union Member State position or a special status that would allow it to be a part of the European Economic Area, thus enjoying the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital between it and the rest of the EEA members.
[edit] Terms of accession to the European Union
The Copenhagen criteria are the rules that define whether a nation is eligible to join the European Union. These rules are divided to a geographic criteria, a political criteria (which includes Democracy, Rule of Law, Human Rights and Respect for and protection of minorities) and an economic criteria.
[edit] Israel's position regarding the Copenhagen criteria
Legally speaking, Israel answers the political criteria[citation needed] and is also answering the economic criteria[citation needed]. However, Israel, being located in the Middle East, does not answer the geographic criteria.
Furthermore, the EU sees Israel as an occupying force in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as the Golan Heights. The ongoing occupation of the Palestinians since 1967 has resulted in political and human rights violations, and although these were made in territories in which Israel has not extended its law and whose inhabitants are not the citizens of Israel, it does contradict the Copenhagen criteria since the EU holds Israel responsible for these territories.[2]
This situation, however, can possibly be solved in the Middle East peace process. It has also been proposed that the EU would offer Israel membership once a peace treaty is signed.
Naturally, there is nothing the EU or Israel can do about the geographic criteria. According to the 1992 Maastricht Treaty (Article O) any European country that respects the principles of the EU may apply to join. However, the definition for "European" remains vague, as it can be viewed as either a geographic, cultural, ethnic or historical term. Israel is considered a developed, industrialized democratic nation. Considering its relative geographic proximity to Europe, its predominantly Western culture and way of life, as well as the fact that most of its Jewish population has former European (Ashkenazi or Sephardi) ancestors, Israel could may well be considered an exception.
Additionally, other non geographically European nations, and overseas departments of European nations, are a part of the EU or are considered a part of Europe. For example: Cyprus is geographically in Asia, but is an EU Member State. French Guiana, located in South America, is also a part of the EU, and Georgia (country), located in Asia, is considered, based on cultural, historical, and political definitions, as European.
[edit] Support for the accession of Israel to the EU
The accession of Israel to the European Union has been supported by several prominent Israeli politicians, such as former Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Shimon Peres and Israeli academic Uriel Reichman.[3] [4]
A poll conducted by the Dahaf Institute of the EC Delegation in Tel Aviv in 2004 revealed that 85% of Israelis would back an application for EU membership.[5]
It has also been supported by a number of European leaders and public figures. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the EU in July 2003, likewise indicated an interest in an expanded EU that would include Israel.
Marco Pannella, a member of the European Parliament and leader of the Nonviolent Radical Party, has supported the idea since 1988. In an appeal published on several Israeli newspapers, the Radical Party explained the initiative as follow:
Israel's defense and security, integrated with defense policies the United States of Europe could adopt and are currently adopting, could be shared by three hundred million people. Peace for Israel could be negotiated in this context - exclusively within this context -providing a strategy for the withdrawal of her occupying forces. [6]
The campaign has gained some support both in Israel and in Europe.[7]. After the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, he has launched an international manifesto asking for the entry of Israel in the Eu so that "the terrorist and military attack on Israel would be deprived of the strength of its most real reasons and its confessed goals".
Several other scholars have also supported the idea. Leon Hadar, research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, stated that "Conditioning Israel's entry into the EU on its agreement to withdraw from the occupied territories and dismantle the Jewish settlements there, would strengthen the hands of those Israelis who envision their state not as a militarized Jewish ghetto but as a Westernized liberal community. The tragic fate of the European Jewry served as the driving force for the creation of Israel, and welcoming the Jewish state into the European community makes historical and moral sense."[8]
Israeli academic Professor Uriel Reichman, in a Conference on Israel and Wider Europe held on February 16, 2004, said:
"For some 1,900 years, the Jews wandered around Europe, driven away from one place and accepted in another. My mother's family was among those expelled from Spain, went on to spend a few generations in Amsterdam, and then settled in Berlin for six generations. ...In his famous speech in London in 1896, Theodor Herzl emphasized his fundamental theory: "The Jews want their own state, in which they can finally live and flourish as a free people.". ...Herzl concluded that, "We have a right to demand land on which to establish a state." My people have made significant scientific, cultural, and economic contributions to Europe. The brutal wave of hatred the European population expressed toward the Jews reached an inhumane low precisely when integration was at its peak, making Herzl's words prophetic. Almost paradoxically, Europe, which had shown clearly exactly how unwelcome the Jews were in its territory, moved to the Land of Israel along with its Jews. The great return to Zion mainly began with the Jews of Europe, who brought with them, not only Jewish culture and heritage, but also the ideologies and patterns of thought and action which they had adopted from their European motherlands."
For Michael Shtender-Auerbach, public affairs officer at The Century Foundation, "As an EU member at peace with its neighbors, Israel would bolster Europe's status as a world leader and international power broker. This would also provide Israelis with the security and membership in a community of nations that accept and protect them and to give the Palestinians their best hope for statehood in the long battle for sovereignty".[9]
Other reasons in support of a stronger relationship between Europe and Israel have been given by Hildegard Müller, Chairwoman of the German-Israeli Parliamentary Friendship Group of the German Bundestag, in her speech during her visit to Jerusalem in june 2004:
Today, six per cent of more than six million Israelis already hold a passport from an EU country. Another 14 per cent, or 700,000 people, are entitled to apply for one because they or their parents come from an EU Member State. (...) Europe must recognise – if it genuinely wants peace in the Middle East – that it needs to offer security. Only if Israel's security is guaranteed can new trust be created. There is scarcely a single other state in the world that, like Israel, is not a member of a regional alliance.[10]
[edit] Reasons against the accession of Israel to the EU
Although it is widely accepted that Israel is an important partner for the EU, many European countries, let alone European citizens, oppose the accession of any non geographically European nations into the EU.
Furthermore, Israel is the center of one of the world's longest conflicts - the Arab-Israeli conflict, centered around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A poll recently conducted among citizens of the EU revealed that over half of Europeans think that Israel now presents the biggest threat to world peace.[11]
These are the main reasons why for the foreseeable future, and at least until the Middle East conflict will be resolved, Israel's accession to the EU as a full member seems rather unlikely. However, since both Israel and the EU seem eager to further develop their relations, a different approach could be taken, under the EU's "Wider Europe" plan.
Additionally, from an Israeli point of view, becoming a member state of the European Union may conflict with the ideology of Zionism. If Israel were a member of the EU, European laws would allow any citizen of a member state of the European Union to move to Israel. Israeli critics of EU membership argue that allowing numerous European Christians and Muslims to move into Israel could erode the "Jewish character" of the State of Israel.
[edit] The European Union's Wider Europe scheme and Israel
The EU's Wider Europe plan poses a dramatic change from its 'traditional' policy towards the Mediterranean and Middle East.
In spite of various shortcomings in practice, the EU's Mediterranean policy reflected a relatively coherent line of (European) security thinking, which was motivated by ‘rational’ security interests. 'Wider Europe', on the other hand, derives from identity-driven dynamics in view of EU enlargement. It resulted in wide-ranging proposals concerning the future of EU-Mediterranean relations in general and EU-Israeli relations in particular, which may challenge the EU's approach towards the Mediterranean and Middle East maintained hitherto.
The issue of enlargement has prompted the EU to reconsider its relations to those countries on the EU’s southern and eastern borders that will not enter the EU in the foreseeable future.
The Commission’s recent ‘Wider Europe’ scheme can be read as an attempt to offer a ‘consolation prize’ to the economically and politically most ‘advanced’ new and old neighbours. Based on a benchmarking approach, this initiative includes the possibility of integrating the southern and eastern neighbours into the EU’s single market in the long term.
The European Union's Wider Europe plan is aimed at creating such a special status to a group of non-European countries, most notibly Israel.
The ‘Wider Europe’ scheme seems to derive from a fundamentally different ‘logic’ than the EU’s Mediterranean policy maintained thus far. While the latter was motivated by rather traditional security interests within ‘European’ security thinking, ‘wider Europe’ is a consequence of EU-internal dynamics that are linked to question of identity against the background of EU enlargement.
The ‘Wider Europe’ proposal was also extremely well received in Israel. This country had always tended to consider the EMP as a ‘straightjacket’, in view of its advanced economic status and long-standing political relations with the EU (Del Sarto & Tovias, 2001). This was even more the case in recent years, as the difficulties and eventual collapse of the peace process inevitably spilled over to the regional dimension of the EMP.
In fact, if implemented, Israel is expected to gain most from the ‘Wider Europe’ scheme. Considering that among all the countries that are or will be situated at the EU’s external border, Israel is most ‘advanced’ in its economic and political relations with the EU, Israel is most likely to benefit from the ENP. In this vein, the country may well be ‘the leading star of wider Europe’, as one observer has put it (Primor, 2003). Indeed, the status of EU-Israeli relations cannot be compared to the bilateral relations that the EU maintains to other Mediterranean partners. And indeed, EU officials presented Israel’s integration into the EU’s internal market as a very probable scenario of EU-Israeli relations in the future, provided that Israel was interested in such a development. In this vein, Commissioner Günter Verheugen stated: ‘I consider Israel to be a natural partner for the EU in the new neighbourhood policy. (…) Our relations will be tailor-made and can range from the status quo to the type of close interconnection that we have with countries like Norway or Iceland in the European Economic Area’ (Verheugen, 2003). It should be noted that some academics in Israel had been advocating that Israel should enter the European Economic Area, or achieve a similar status, long before that (Tovias, 2002).
Most conspicuously, ‘Wider Europe’ contradicts the regional design of the EMP and its inherent region-building approach. While it downgrades the regional dimension to a complementary, and in fact optional, element, ‘wider Europe’ also potentially implies a ‘de-coupling’ of Israel from the Mediterranean region by attaching this country more closely to the EU than other Maghreb and Mashreq states. Concerning Israel, ‘wider Europe’ clearly implies a return to the logic of the EU’s 1994 Essen Declaration, which conceded Israel a ‘special status’ (Extracts of the Conclusions of the Presidency of the Essen European Council’, 1994). At the same time, ‘wider Europe’ seems to imply a softening of the EU’s political pressure on Israel with regard to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, making the upgrading of bilateral relations between the EU and Israel less dependent on the latter. Of course, the EU may still want to maintain some sort of ‘conditionality’ in EU-Israeli relations. For example, the EU may want to limit the offer of integrating Israel into its internal market to the territory of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. With it, the EU would act in accordance with its decision of not applying the 1995 free trade agreement to Israeli products manufactured in Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. However, together with the adoption of the principle of ‘positive conditionality’ on an individual basis, the New Neighbourhood Policy is also a departure from the EU’s traditional stance on Middle East peace-making. In accordance with its declared aim, the approach of the ENP certainly promises a somewhat greater political role of the EU in matters of peace and reforms in the Middle East – provided that the EU considerable increases its budget for its new policy. Yet considering the EU’s offer of possibly extending the ‘four freedoms’ to Israel – but for the time being not to other Mediterranean partners – the EU’s ambition of being an even-handed broker in the Middle East conflict will be difficult to maintain.[12]
[edit] External links
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ The Eu's relations with Israel. Retrieved on September 1, 2006.
- ^ http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/pdf/country/israel_enp_country_report_2004_en.pdf
- ^ Analysis: Israel Weighing EU Membership. Retrieved on May 21, 2003.
- ^ http://pow.idc.ac.il/pls/portal/url/ITEM/89EBA6EAF30A444FA739E1E8680847F6
- ^ Nathalie Tocci. Comparing the Role of the EU in the Turkish-Kurdish and Israeli-Palestinian Conflicts. Retrieved on March, 2005.
- ^ Jerusalme post ad (October 18, 1988).
- ^ Shalom considers asking to join the EU. Retrieved on May 21, 2003.
- ^ Leon Hadar. Iraq and Israel in the EU: Peace through Accession?. Retrieved on August 31, 2006.
- ^ Michael Shtender-Auerbach. Israel and the EU: A Path to Peace. Retrieved on August 31, 2006.
- ^ Hildegard Müller. The case for a privileged partnership between the EU and Israel. Retrieved on August 31, 2006.
- ^ http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/1031-Poll.html
- ^ www.liv.ac.uk/ewc/docs/Borders%20workshop/Papers%20for%20workshop/Del%20Sarto%20290604.pdf
