In Middle East, EU is an economic giant but a political dwarf

The EU has seen its geopolitical influence decline throughout the world in recent years, but no more so than in the Middle East, a region historically, economically and culturally closer to it than the US. The Europeans have been losing political influence for decades, especially after endorsing the US-sponsored peace accords between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel.

Exclusive US oversight of the Oslo process sidelined the EU as a block, as well as the UN and Russia, although these three entities remain members of the Quartet — in addition to the US. But Washington has made it clear that it will neutralize any meaningful role of the Quartet to avoid laying any serious pressure on its ally and proxy, Israel.

But the EU’s political influence on parties to the Israel-Palestine conflict has also declined in recent years. In this case, it suffered a fatal blow following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing brutal Israeli war on Gaza, which is ongoing and has now stretched to Lebanon.

The Europeans, including the British after leaving the union, are divided when it comes to exerting meaningful pressure on Israel to cease its assault on Gaza. Following the Oct. 7 attacks, European leaders flocked to embrace Benjamin Netanyahu and to declare that Israel had the absolute right to defend itself against the aggressor, meaning Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The Europeans are divided when it comes to exerting meaningful pressure on Israel to cease its assault on Gaza

Osama Al-Sharif

But they soon realized that Netanyahu had unleashed an indiscriminate blitz whose aim was not to decapitate Hamas, as he has claimed, but to kill civilians, destroy infrastructure and eventually drive more than 2.2 million Palestinians toward death, either by direct bombing or by starvation and disease. It became clear that Netanyahu had other plans as he waged what nongovernmental organizations, UN rapporteurs and even the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court have described as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Still the EU has vacillated, as members like Hungary and Austria have rejected calls to bring collective punitive measures against Israel. The leading critical voice of Israeli atrocities in Gaza is foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell, who has been banned from entering Israel, Gaza and the West Bank by the far-right Israeli government because of his bold statements.

Europe exhibited such divisiveness and lack of a coherent foreign policy when three European states — Spain, Ireland and Slovenia — decided to recognize a Palestinian state in May. The UK, which is widely recognized as triggering the decades-long conflict and causing the Palestinians’ historic injustice, has made no such move. France sat on the fence on this issue as it battled the rise of the pro-Israel far right at home and the decline of its economic influence within the EU.

Germany, the EU’s economic and political powerhouse, remained loyal to its blind support of Israel and denial of its war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. Italy and France took the step of stopping all military shipments to Israel.

But at no point was the EU able to initiate a dialogue with the Biden administration about reining in Netanyahu and preventing his doubling down on what is now clearly a crime of ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza. The EU has become dependent on Washington’s support of its policy on Ukraine, the most crucial geopolitical challenge to the bloc since its inception.

Yes, the EU and its members remain the biggest donor to UNRWA and other UN agencies working for the welfare of the Palestinians. Brussels is also the biggest financial supporter of the Palestinian Authority. However, such financial support is undercut by its inability to produce a decisive political stand that would influence the trajectory of events in the Occupied Territories.

The EU and individual member states have imposed sanctions on Jewish settler groups in the West Bank, as has the US. But that has not prevented Netanyahu’s far-right government from unleashing a settler-led wave of terror and mayhem against West Bank Palestinians.

And when South Africa brought what has become a seminal charge of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice, Germany and, at one point, the UK moved in to defend Israel and attempt to throw out the case, despite the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have so far been killed.

Historically, the EU has been a progressive entity when it comes to addressing the plight of the Palestinians and how the conflict should be resolved. In 1980, it issued the famous Venice Declaration, which recognized the Palestinian right to self-determination and the concept of the two-state solution based on UN Security Council resolutions.

The EU has gone through significant internal transformations that have eroded its role in the international arena

Osama Al-Sharif

Aside from the US’ dominant role in managing peace talks between Israel and the PA, which have been nonexistent for almost 15 years now, the EU has gone through significant internal transformations that have eroded its role in the international arena, especially the Middle East. While the EU remains the third-largest economy in the world in terms of gross domestic product, its economies have been suffering from slow or negative growth, rising inflation, immigration, both legal and illegal, too many regulations, Donald Trump’s first-term tariffs policy and pressure to increase defense spending, NATO challenges and, finally, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The last of these has depleted the EU’s resources and, together with the immigration issue, allowed the far right to make historic gains in local, national and EU-wide elections.

Euroskeptics like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni now want to “change” the EU from within, extracting benefits while hollowing out its real spirit of unification. The UK’s influence in the Middle East is also waning. The Gaza war has singled out the US as the only player that is capable of stopping the massacre of Palestinians and preventing a regional spillover.

But it is Israel’s pivot to becoming a rogue state — its parliament last week voted to abolish all agreements with UNRWA­­ — that is putting the EU and its fundamental value system under pressure. The group does not influence Israel, while several state members continue to defend Netanyahu’s genocidal war. Its economic support of the Palestinians does little to change the needle as far as a political settlement is concerned.

Moreover, the rise of other global and regional powers, such as China, Russia and the Gulf states, has created new diplomatic channels and alliances, reducing Europe’s relative importance.

One should add that Europe’s responses to various other Middle Eastern crises, including the Syrian civil war and the so-called Arab Spring, have been criticized as slow and ineffective, damaging its credibility.

And unlike the US, the Europeans have a modest military presence in the Middle East, thus limiting their diplomatic options when it comes to intervening in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

While the EU as a group is still an influential economic power, it has proven to be a political dwarf when it comes to addressing geopolitical challenges, not only in the Middle East but in the Southern Mediterranean as a whole. This has been most evident in France’s failure to intervene in the Israel-Lebanon showdown, despite Paris seeing itself as a guarantor of its former colony’s stability.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010