COULD THE EU EXPERIENCE OFFER IDEAS FOR RESOLVING THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT?

By Giacomo Valentini

I met Mr. Scafarto in 2004, when I was living in Brussels, and I immediately took to liking him. He was a retired EU civil servant, from Naples, Italy. We spoke Italian among us, though with other people around he would speak French. Amazingly, he was even able to speak French with a Neapolitan accent! He used to like telling me stories of his life, and one of them concerned his first weeks at his new job back in the early 1960s at the European Commission’s Luxembourg offices. There, he said, the department he had been assigned to was headed by a Dutchman, who immediately made it clear that he did not like Italians, he thought they were lazy, inefficient and generally uneducated. But the EU civil service at the time was pretty short-staffed, which condemned the two to working together - the boss needed all the human resources he could get hold of. Long story short, Mr. Scafarto was proud to tell me that by the time he was promoted to a new department, his boss had changed his mind - working together the two had forged a good and productive relationship, and in the end they were both sorry to have to part ways. 

This is a small example of what working together on a common project can do to people. The EU finds its roots in a Europe that was recovering from the destruction of WW2. It is an often overlooked fact that the United States played a key role in getting the French to agree to form an economic community with the Germans. France's initial post-war plans were to permanently divide Germany into four independent countries, annex a chunk of western Germany to its own territory, and forbid any German state from having an army and a steel industry - all measures designed to prevent the country from ever again becoming a danger to its neighbours.

It was largely under US pressure that the "hawks" in the French government yielded to a much more dovish approach, as promoted by among others, senior French diplomat Jean Monnet. This consisted of forging a coal and steel community with Germany, which would put all of the two countries' coal and steel resources under the control of a supranational body that would control production and allocate quotas in a largely independent manner. The immediate benefit was that such a centralised management would optimise procurement for the post-war reconstruction era. Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and tiny Luxembourg joined the initiative, and in 1951 the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was created, the first incarnation of a common European governance system. Over the years, this kernel developed into a comprehensive "Economic Community" which created a common European trade policy under supranational control and a common market, and later produced a monetary union. Over the past 50 years, the EU has expanded from the original six members to 27 today.

As this expansion took place, the EU's institutions evolved, too. In 1979 the first Europe-wide elections took pace to elect the European Parliament. Until then, the EP had been composed of delegates nominated by the National parliaments of the various member states. The change was momentous, though it took decades to be fully felt. The EP remains today a stunning example of a multicultural, multinational institution where elected officials from 27 countries, with different languages, religions, cultures and politics, meet to discuss policy issues. It is to my knowledge the only directly elected multi-national parliament in the world.

The wonderful thing about the EP is that political allegiances across nationalities prove to be much stronger than national allegiances. A Greek socialist will belong to the same political group as the German and French Socialists, while a Greek Conservative will sit alongside German and Dutch party comrades. And even when in 2015 Germany was considering demanding that Greece leave the Eurozone and undergo punitive austerity measures to heal their financial wounds, the Greek conservatives were still voting daily alongside their German counterparts against the Greek Socialists on a variety of different issues as part of the EU’s daily legislative activities.

Interestingly, just as in the late 1940s Western European countries were putting into place a new model of peaceful coexistence and growth, across the Mediterranean Sea a new long-term conflict was erupting between the newly formed state of Israel and the Palestinian population of the region. That conflict has now been underway for over 70 years, and innumerable attempts at reaching a lasting peace between the two sides have failed. During those decades, Europe has thrived by building an area of peace and prosperity - by some accounts the longest period of peace Europe has had since the reign of ancient Rome's Emperor Augustus.  

Could the European experience be of use in finding a solution to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict? After so many years of failure of the two-state solution, land-for-peace, etc., new ideas are now more necessary than ever.

The Israeli-Palestinian Confederation (IPC) could prove to be precisely the sort of new thinking required to overcome the current painful stalemate. On the basis of my 30-plus years of experience  working at a policy think-tank in Brussels, I see some striking similarities between the Europe of the 1940s and Israel-Palestine of today, and I see similarities between the IPC and the EU. 

The IPC presents itself thus:

Our goal is to create a mutual democratic government for the people of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. We believe that this government should be independent and separate from the Israeli and Palestinian governments. We do not wish to dismantle the Israeli or Palestinian governments but rather work in conjunction with those governments to facilitate peace and prosperity. We believe that the legitimate needs of Israelis and Palestinians would be advanced and protected by the constitution published on www.ipconfederation.org. 

The IPC would establish an extra-national authority, operating with the full consensus of both Israeli and Palestinian authorities, i.e. all the national authorities affected by its decisions, to tackle issues of common concern. At its heart would be the IPC parliamentary assembly, where Israeli and Palestinian members would work together to draft and discuss legislation which would only become law if ratified by the Israeli and Palestinian authorities.

When I use the word “extra-national”, I mean an authority that operates independently from the national governments that currently rule Israel and Palestine. I could use the term “meta-national”, to signify that it comes “after” or “beyond” national authority. The IPC would, however, work in close contact with those governments, finding concrete solutions to common problems, and thus promoting tangible, peaceful cooperation and progress towards coexistence. The approach could start by solving concrete issues where a cooperative approach would be more effective than separate national laws. Issues such as improving transport connections between Israeli and Palestinian territories, setting standards for school syllabuses, promoting tourism, economic development initiatives, could provide the first confidence-building steps and provide evidence that such an approach is beneficial. The national sovereignty of the Israeli and Palestinian authorities would be protected by giving them veto power on all IPC laws. This would encourage members of the IPC parliament to negotiate with these national authorities so that the final legislation is acceptable to all.

Here, too, the EU can provide an example. On a variety of topics, the EU started by launching legislative initiatives subject to national veto, the first iteration of which, after national vetoes and diplomatic compromises, would look like a watered down version of the original proposal. But then, over the years, subsequent updates and improvements to the law would end up introducing meaningful changes. This is what happened, e.g., with the reform of the EU’s electricity and gas markets, a process that started in 1999 with some timid reforms, and culminated 12 years later with a complete reshaping of Europe’s energy system, with the EU having a strong mandate to regulate the whole sector. Such a process is slow, sometimes frustrating but extremely important in terms of building confidence and trust between all parties.

In conclusion, the IPC idea can provide a fresh perspective to resolve a problem that has evaded resolution for decades, in a manner that can not only promote peace, but also economic development for the whole region.

The United States achieved its unity after a war with the British, and consolidated it after a civil war that caused millions of deaths among fellow Americans. The EU was created after two devastating world wars. The hope is that the Israeli-Palestinian confederation can help that region end the bloodshed.

Full disclosure: I’m a member of the IPC Board.