The European Union should play a bigger part in a US-brokered peace process in Israel-Palestine, a senior European Commission official said just ahead of a key donor conference the bloc is hosting Thursday focused on reforming the Palestinian Authority.
“We should have a role in the Board of Peace,” the EU’s Commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Šuica, told The Parliament in an interview on Tuesday, referencing US President Donald Trump’s plan to implement an international transitional governance body in the war-decimated Gaza Strip.
Earlier this week, the United Nations Security Council adopted a US-drafted resolution endorsing Trump’s 20-point peace plan. It includes the creation of the Board of Peace in Gaza — which the president is expected to chair — and the establishment of an International Stabilisation Force tasked with de-arming the Hamas militants who have governed the Palestinian territory for nearly two decades.
The plan is the next stage in a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect last month, following two years of war triggered by the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel that left approximately 1,200 people dead. Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of more than 69,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
The EU’s push for a real seat at the table is driven in part by the fact that it’s the largest donor to the PA, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, Šuica explained. “We want to be players and not only payers,” she said, referencing Palestine and the wider North Africa and Middle East region.
Total EU aid to the PA amounted to $7.6 billion between 1994- 2023, or 18% of overall funding, with the US contributing $5.7 billion, according to the Palestine Economy Portal. Brussels also announced last spring that it would a fund an aid package worth up to €1.6 billion, provided the PA carries out a series of governance reforms.
The state of these reforms will be at the centre of the inaugural meeting of the Palestine Donor Group in Brussels on Thursday. Šuica is set to preside over the gathering alongside Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. The meeting is expected to draw 60 delegations, the Commission said.
In the interview, Šuica insisted that funding the PA was the only way to move towards reconciliation between Palestinians and Israel.
“We don't talk to Hamas. Hamas is out of [the] question. We have to empower someone in Palestine to be an interlocutor not only for us, but also for Israel,” she said.
Šuica added that it was essential to ensure the PA is financially viable so that it can deliver services to Palestinians currently provided by international organisations. "We would like the Palestinian Authority to be capable of taking over some services from UNRWA,” she said of the UN Relief and Works Agency of Palestine Refugees, citing health and education as possible areas.
At the same time, the commissioner was adamant that the EU cannot shoulder the costs alone. "It’s ‘in everyone’s interest that we bring peace to the Middle East...it’s in the interest of Gulf countries; in the interest of the American administration and in our interest,” she told The Parliament.
Palestinian tax revenue
Šuica also called on Israel to pay the PA tax revenue it has been withholding since the 7 October attacks.
Before that point, Israel would collect tax on behalf of Palestinians in the West Bank and channel monthly transfers to the PA. But it has so far only agreed to release $500 million of roughly $3 billion in order to pay off the PA’s debt with Israel Electric Corp., the state-run power supplier.
“We are pressuring Israel to release these withheld revenues,” Šuica said. She added that if Israel does not agree to free up the monies, “I am not sure whether the Palestinian Authority will survive.”
Šuica argued that a functioning PA is in Israel’s interest. “I think in the end they [the Israelis] will be urged to do it,” she said of releasing the tax funds.
‘A colonial shame’
Meanwhile, the bloc’s bid to gain greater political influence in the Gaza peace process has already drawn critics.
Francesca Albanese, the UN’s Special Rapporteur to the Palestinian territories who has been outspoken in her condemnation of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, on Tuesday denounced the EU’s push to participate in the Trump peace process as a “colonial shame” in remarks at the European Parliament in Brussels.
"I’m ashamed to be part of a European Union that wants to be part of the negotiating table in this predatory way," she told The Parliament. “We should have been at the negotiating table when we could still prevent the destruction of Gaza,” she added, while warning that the UN Security Council’s adoption of Trump’s plan is not in line with international law. Albanese urged the EU and other international actors to leave the Gaza strip to Palestinians, rather than join Trump’s Board of Peace.
Sign up to The Parliament's weekly newsletter
Every Friday our editorial team goes behind the headlines to offer insight and analysis on the key stories driving the EU agenda. Subscribe for free here.