Last Monday we had our monthly Foreign Affairs Council (FAC). Each FAC is a defining moment for the EU Foreign Policy, because it is when all 27 EU Foreign Ministers can exchange views and take decisions. However, this FAC was a particularly significant one since we had invited the Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz and his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Malki to address the ministers, in two separate moments, as well as a delegation from the League of Arab States, including the Foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia, Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, Jordan, Ayman Safadi, Egypt Sameh Shoukry and the Secretary General of the organisation, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, to discuss with us the situation in the region  and the way forward toward a lasting peace.

To have succeeded in bringing together in Brussels the 27 ministers of the EU and those of the main regional players is a recognition of the role that the EU can play in the Middle East conflict.

To have succeeded in bringing together in Brussels the ministers of the 27 EU Member States and those of the main regional players is a recognition of the role that the EU can play to address both current emergencies and longer term political solutions in the Middle East conflict if it has the political will to do so. 

The catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza

The most urgent issue that we discussed was of course the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, as described recently by the Secretary General of the United Nations to the Security Council. Since the 7 October, 25.000 people have been killed and more than 60.000 injured in the enclave, a vast majority of them being children and women. The level of physical destruction of Gaza is unimaginable. The humanitarian situation of the 2 million surviving Gazans is dramatic with wide-spread hunger, and a lack of access to water, health and almost all basic commodities. The delivery of aid remains massively insufficient, with less than 100 trucks entering the enclave every day compared to 500 before the war.

The 25 000 deaths of mainly women and children, the unimaginable destructions and the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza cannot be an acceptable price to pay for the fight against Hamas.

During our meeting, myself as well as all EU foreign ministers once again reiterated our common condemnation in the strongest possible terms of the atrocities committed by Hamas in southern Israel on 7 October. However, the current situation in Gaza, cannot be an acceptable price to pay for the fight against Hamas. Humanitarian assistance cannot become subject to political negotiations. We urged the Israeli minister to do much more to ensure the protection of civilians and of humanitarian personnel and infrastructure, including UNRWA’s, open new access points and speed up the control of trucks.

In the West Bank unprecedented levels of settler violence and settlement expansion threaten and destroy Palestinian communities and EU funded humanitarian projects. Again, we asked the Israeli minister to halt these practices that violate international and humanitarian law.

More civilian deaths, more destruction, more hardship for the Palestinian in Gaza and in the West Bank cannot help defeat Hamas and bring more security to Israel. On the contrary. It is an absolute urgency to stop the fighting in Gaza to avoid more civilian casualties, provide sufficient humanitarian assistance and free the 136 hostages still held by Hamas.

More civilian deaths, more destruction, more hardship for the Palestinian in Gaza and in the West Bank cannot help defeat Hamas and bring more security to Israel. On the contrary.

We discussed also the serious risk of a regional spill-over of this war. The situation along Israel’s northern border is very concerning. All actors must avoid miscalculations. For my part I conveyed this message to all my interlocutors in Lebanon recently, including the leader of the Hezbollah parliamentary group.  He insisted that Hezbollah does not want an escalation but will not stop until the Gaza war ends. On Monday, we exchanged views between us and with our regional interlocutors on effective ways for de-escalation.

The critical escalation risk in the Red Sea

The other critical escalation risk is currently coming from the Red Sea. In recent weeks, I have spoken regularly with the Iranian leadership and called on them to show restraint and use their influence to prevent escalation in the Red Sea and elsewhere in the region. The EU supported also the UN Security Council Resolution condemning Houthi attacks. During the FAC, we discussed the launch of a new defensive EU naval mission to protect the commercial vessels in the Red Sea. The principle was accepted, but we still have some homework to do to finalise this new mission. I hope we'll be able to launch it very soon.

During the FAC, the Israeli Foreign minister presented us two videos: one about an artificial island to be built off the coast of Gaza to accommodate a port, and the other about a railway line that would allow to transport goods from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean. I have to say that, like many of our ministerial colleagues, I was quite surprised by this choice of the Israeli minister, which seemed rather out of step with the urgent issues we have to deal with and the decisions that need to be made to address them.

With the Palestinian Foreign Minister, we reiterated the support of the EU to the Palestinian Authority which should play a major role in Gaza after the war. At the end 2023, we finally unblocked €118 million to support the PA. Although EU’s contribution has been slightly declining in recent years, the European Union remains, with almost €1.2 billion for 2021-2024, the biggest provider of external assistance to the Palestinians and we will continue being so.  

EU-Arabe League’s joint effort to revive the two-state solution

With our regional partners, we discussed also the ‘post war’ Gaza and our joint effort to revive the political process towards the two-state solution. The EU position is well known: Gaza cannot remain occupied by Israel neither ruled by Hamas, and there should be no territorial changes or displacement of people. Its future should be closely linked to the implementation of the two-state solution with a sovereign Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as its capital living in peace side by side with the State of Israel.

We should indeed stop talking about the Middle East Peace Process and speak now of the Two-State Solution Implementation Process.

We should indeed stop talking about the Middle East Peace Process and speak now of the Two-State Solution Implementation Process, because the events of the last months have clearly shown that it will not be possible to maintain a lasting peace in the region without implementing the two state solution which the international community, and the EU, have been advocating for decades. It is clear however, and our discussion on Monday has confirmed it one more time, that for the time being this result cannot be achieved by the parties to the conflict alone.

During the last decades, the inaction of the international community has led to too many unspeakable sufferings. We cannot repeat the same mistake. The international community has the duty to engage actively in this peace process and set a clear framework requiring Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate the path towards the commonly agreed result.

The international community has the duty to set a clear framework requiring Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate the path towards the agreed result.

In this context, we discussed with our regional Arab partners the possibility to held a Peace Conference in coming months, building on the efforts that we had already engaged with them, particularly with the meeting organised last September in New York, some weeks before the 7^th of October. I shared also with the EU Member States a proposal for a comprehensive approach to re-initiate this peace process. We will work further on this matter in coming weeks.

The war of aggression against Ukraine remains a top priority

During our Council we discussed also, as we do every month, the war of aggression against Ukraine. It remains of course a top priority because the Russian aggression represents a vital threat to Europe’s security.  In 2023, Russia has made virtually no progress on the battlefield, suffering a lot of casualties. Ukraine has managed to achieve important successes, notably in the Black Sea, where the Russian fleet has been obliged to withdraw. However, ahead of his planned re-election in March, Vladimir Putin continues attacking massively every day Ukraine with thousands of shells, drones and missiles.

We need to do more and faster to support Ukraine with financial resources, with military equipment, by training soldiers...

Via VTC, our colleague, Ukrainian FM Dmytro Kuleba, informed us on the latest developments on the ground. The ministers agreed that the moment has not come to weaken our support to Ukraine and that we need on the contrary to do more and faster with financial resources, with military equipment, by training soldiers… I will travel to Ukraine in February and we are continuing working on a predictable assistance for the years to come. We should reach in the coming days an agreement on a top-up of €5 billion of the European Peace Facility (EPF) in order to establish a “Ukraine Assistance Fund” inside the EPF, based on a new approach on incentivising the military support of EU member states to Ukraine. On the immobilised Russian assets, we are also finalising our work and I make a strong push for this decision to be taken before the next Foreign Affairs Council. 

Finally, we exchanged also on the tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia. We expressed in particular our solidarity with France whose diplomats have been expelled from Azerbaijan and asked Azerbaijan to return to substantive peace and normalisation talks with Armenia. 

The EU can, and must, play a central role in helping to solve the crisis in the Middle East that concerns directly its future.

I hope that our meeting with the main regional players in the Middle East conflict will enable progress to be made both on the immediate urgency of stopping the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and on advancing on the way to putting in place the two-state solution. But what I am sure of, is that the EU can, and must, play a central role in helping to solve a conflict, which concerns directly its future.