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Gaza's hell: Why the EU must change its policy
14/01/2009 By Michael Emerson, Nathalie Tocci, Richard Youngs
For the second time in six months a vicious conflict has erupted on the periphery of Europe. And for the second time in six months the EU is struggling to elaborate an effective, joint response. The Georgian and Gazan conflicts of course exhibit differences as well as similarities. But both raise sobering questions about Europe's supposed strengths in conflict mitigation. Even more than the Georgian episode, the current conflagration in Gaza requires a major policy re-think from European governments.
What we have witnessed in recent weeks is the widely-predicted effect of Europe's, and the international community's, imbalanced policies towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The EU now has to restructure its failed strategy, and seek to bring the new US administration to a similar re-appraisal and policy change.
In this Comment, Michael Emerson, Nathalie Tocci and Richard Youngs outline the four essential elements that such a new approach should entail.
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Keywords
Bio author: Michael Emerson
Michael Emerson is Associate Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) since 1998, and program director for Wider Europe; he participated in successive projects on the Balkans, Caucasus, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Cyprus, Middle East, conflict resolution, democracy promotion, Europe's strategic security, political Islam and the crisis of multi-culturalism within the EU.
Bio author: Nathalie Tocci
Nathalie Tocci is Senior Research Fellow at the Instituto Affari Internazionali in Rome and Associate Fellow at CEPS.
Bio author: Richard Youngs
Democracy promotion. EU foreign policy.
