Mogherini promotes EU role to recreate conditions for Middle East peace process
High Representative Federica Mogherini i today called on Israel, the Palestinians and the international community to redouble efforts to revive the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP).
Speaking in Paris at the Ministerial Conference on the MEPP, Mogherini insisted that the proliferation of conflicts in the region made it more urgent than ever to solve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
“This is because we see very well that the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East is adding on to worrying reasons for the vacuum that the prolongation of the conflict in the Middle East can create,” she told the press. “The internal developments inside Palestine, inside Israel - on the political side, but also the deterioration of the situation on the ground with the risk of violence that is becoming more and more real every single day, with the policy of the settlement expansion and the demolitions, with violence and incitement for violence - tell us very clearly that the perspective that Oslo opened up is seriously at risk of fading away.”
“We in the European Union are convinced that there is a need for the regional actors and international community to come together and try to facilitate talks, serious talks between the parties on the two-state solution. We still don't see any other options for peace than the two states," she added, calling on the international community to recreate conditions for the peace process to restart.
Mogherini also underlined the importance of the work going on within the Quartet to finalise a report with a set of recommendations both for the two sides and for the international community, as it tries to facilitate the peace process.
“The European Union has invested a lot in these renewed efforts from the Quartet to come to a substantial result because we are convinced that we have a special role to play. We are, as Europeans, the first trading partner of Israel, we are, as Europeans, the first financial supporters of the Palestinian authority. We are in good relations with all the key actors of the region, starting from the countries that produced what is still the most interesting basis for the peace negotiations which is the Arab Peace Initiative on which even recently we heard some openings, some interesting openings, from the Israeli side. We are working within the Quartet with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the Arab League to create a framework that could, first of all, save the perspective of the two states and, secondly, recreate conditions for a process to be there, because we still refer to the Middle East Peace Process but the reality of facts is that in this moment there is no peace process at all.”
EU foreign ministers will discuss the latest state of play at their next monthly meeting on 20 June, in Luxembourg, chaired by High Representative Mogherini.