BICOM

EU leaders reaffirmed their support for the two-state solution, including East Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian state and financial support through the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

At a meeting in Brussels with EU foreign ministers yesterday, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas repeated his call for East Jerusalem to be recognised as the capital of Palestine as he urged EU members to recognise the state of Palestine immediately, arguing that there was “no contradiction between recognition (of Palestine) and the resumption of (peace) negotiations”.

However, such calls appeared to win little support among EU members, whose position is that it should come as part of a peace agreement with Israel.

Abbas told EU ministers that the PA “are keen on continuing the way of negotiations. We are determined to reunite our people and our land”.

The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini, set out the EU’s long-standing commitment to investing in Palestinian state-building, aiming to reassure Palestinians and Abbas of the [the EU’s] continued support, including financial “through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East”.

Prior to the meeting, Mogherini was critical of US President Donald Trump’s Jerusalem announcement, telling reporters that “clearly there is a problem with Jerusalem. That is a very diplomatic euphemism”. However, she said she still wanted to work with the US on Middle East peace talks and said that she had discussed ways to restart them late last year with US Vice President Mike Pence and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

“We reaffirmed… our conviction that the framework [for the peace process] has to be multilateral,” suggesting that the framework the EU backs would include the Quartet, which is made up of the US, UN, EU, Russia and some Arab countries.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters that the EU should “move toward an association agreement,” giving the PA unfettered access to the EU’s 500 million consumers, as well as increasing aid and political and cultural ties, as a way to strengthen cooperation with non-EU countries.

The EU already has an association agreement with Israel that has been in force since June 2000.