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Democratisation / Comment

The EU and the Middle East Peace Process: Re-engagement?

07/03/2007 By Richard Youngs

In the aftermath of the January 2007 Saudi Arabia-sponsored ‘Mecca Agreement’, the formation of a Palestinian National Unity Government raises the prospects of a European re-engagement with the Palestinian Authority.

The EU’s decision after the elections of January 2006 to boycott the Hamas government has had a number of negative effects. One of the most serious is that progress has been undone on Palestinian institutional reform, an area where European governments and the European Commission had begun to establish a useful and lead role.

A unity government between Hamas and Fatah should be used as a platform from which to renew this reform-oriented focus of EU policies, still the policy area where Europe can best add value to the plethora of initiatives developed by other international actors.

There are lessons to be learned in how Palestinian reform should be supported and in how ‘low politics’ EU instruments can be most effective if pursued as part of a broader European political engagement.

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Keywords

European Union Gaza Strip and West Bank Governance Middle East and North Africa Political Reform

Bio author: Richard Youngs

Richard Youngs is Senior Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Democratisation programme at FRIDE. He also lectures at the University of Warwick in the UK. He studied at Cambridge (BA Hons) and Warwick (MA, PhD) universities.