Sound The Trumpet : Twelve EU Countries Likely to Back Palestine's UN Bid

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“Twelve EU Countries Likely to Back Palestine's UN Bid”
by EUobserver - Andrew Reitman
November 9th, 2012

BRUSSELS - Palestine can count on about 12 Yes votes by EU countries when it seeks to upgrade its UN status, in a move expected later this month.

EU foreign affairs spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic told EUobserver on Thursday (8 November) that foreign ministers will debate the subject at a regular meeting in Brussels on 19 November.

She added that: "The EU maintains that negotiations remain the best way forward to resolve the Middle East peace process."

A senior EU diplomat told this website the same day the EU remains divided on the question, however. He noted that member states' votes "will probably follow the same pattern as with Unesco," referring to a decision by the UN's Paris-based cultural wing to admit Palestine as a member last year.

At the time, 11 countries - Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia and Spain - backed the Unesco bid.

Another 11 - Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Romania and the UK - abstained. The other five - the Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Sweden - voted No.

Some of the positions might have shifted over the past 12 months.

Cyprus and Israel have in the meantime developed closer ties over a joint project to explore natural gas reserves in the Mediterranean Sea.

But Israel lost an ally in Brussels when Dutch foreign minister Uri Rosenthal left his post in a new coalition government this week.

Rosenthal's successor, centre-left politician Frans Timmermans, has in the past criticised the Dutch government's pro-Israeli stance. Last September, he tabled a motion in the Dutch parliament saying The Hague should back Palestine's bid to get a Vatican-type observer status in the UN.

The Palestinian side on Thursday circulated a draft UN resolution seeking "Observer State status ... on the basis of the pre-1967 borders."

The draft text echoes the EU's common position on the conflict by also calling for "the resumption and acceleration of negotiations" and "two states, an independent, sovereign, democratic, contiguous and viable state of Palestine, living side by side in peace and security with Israel."

It needs a simple majority in the UN to pass, with a vote expected on 15 November or on 29 November.

Palestine's chief negotiator on the conflict, Saeb Erakat, in October described the move as "a sword on [the] neck" of Israel, because if it goes through, Palestine will have the right to file cases against Israel at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

For his part, Israel's foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman will on Friday in Vienna meet with Israel's ambassadors to European countries to co-ordinate a blocking campaign.

He gave a flavour of what Israeli diplomats will be telling EU capitals in coming days at a recent meeting with EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton in Israel.

"He threatened to withhold Palestine's tax revenues, to cut off their electricity and water supplies and to flood the occupied territories with new settlements if they go ahead with the UN vote," an EU source told this website.

In an another foretaste of things to come, Israel this week unveiled the construction of almost 1,300 new settler homes on occupied land.

The US is also lobbying EU countries not to back the UN bid.

The state department sent a confidential memo to member states' UN ambassadors in September saying that the observer status bid "would have significant negative consequences, for the peace process itself, for the UN system, as well for our ability to maintain significant financial support for the Palestinian Authority."

It noted: "We believe your government understands what is at stake here, and - like us - wants to avoid a collision."

It added that EU governments should tell other UN members and their Palestinian contacts that its UN bid "would be extremely counter-productive.

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