In the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7th, the EU responded with a flurry of contradictory policy decisions, leaving its geopolitical influence questioned and its external posture compromised by internal politics. The EU should speak with one voice in the Levant to coordinate a response that ousts Hamas, coupled with the democratic renewal of an independent Palestine.

After the terrorist group Hamas conducted their most deadly attack on Israel, killing more than 1,400 people and taking over 200 hostages, Israel responded with a new siege on Gaza which has already killed more than 6,500 Palestinians. In response, the European Union (EU) has found itself with many disjointed voices reflected through an erratic, heterogeneous policy.

The EU’s immediate response took the form of an announcement by EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi that the bloc would immediately suspend aid for the Palestinian Authority (PA)—to which it is the largest provider of external assistance, accounting for €1.28 billion between 2017-2020. Only a few days later, the EU backtracked on that statement, saying that it would instead review its assistance to Palestine to ensure no misuse of funds.

Most recently, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen alongside United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced the EU will increase its humanitarian funding to Gaza from €25 million to €75 million and will open a humanitarian air bridge to Gaza through Egypt.

The EU has clearly found itself struggling to speak with a unified voice regarding Israel and Palestine. For some time, this issue has permeated the EU’s external relations, leaving it “marginalised and unable to exert real influence to shape conflict dynamics,” according to Hugh Lovatt from the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Yet, with reports of Israeli war crimes, fears of Hezbollah entering the conflict, and an increasing skepticism of the EU’s capacity as a global actor, the EU must find a common strategy to reinforce its global posture. As is, the EU has not found the mechanisms to support the statements coming from its chief diplomat, Josep Borell, such as, that “Israel has the right to defend [itself] but it has to be done accordingly with international law, humanitarian law, and some decisions are contrary to international law.”

Past Versus Present

The EU has never played a leading role in mediating issues in the Levant, however, the European Council in the Venice Declaration (1980) did assume “responsibility in the peace process” in recognizing the two-state solution. Since the early 1990’s (despite a trend of annual decline), the EU has also been an agent for advancing conflict resolution in the region and more broadly, and has provided humanitarian aid to Palestine since 2000.

In recent years, these efforts have primarily “stuck to an increasingly meaningless two-state mantra” over operational plans for conflict resolution. While the EU may have once been viewed as an alternative leader in the Middle East to the United States, Europe’s influence today has been diminished to national representatives from EU member-states, unable to secure any high-level meetings in Jerusalem.

Prior to the most recent escalations, the EU did, however, have plans to take greater leadership in reviving peace plans focused on Israel and Palestine, with almost 50 foreign ministers from Europe and the Middle East meeting at the United Nations General Assembly in September to announce the ‘Peace Day Effort’.

Following the events since October 7th, a greater role from the EU is indeed needed. Israel appears to be preparing for a large-scale invasion of Gaza and has already called for all of the 2.3 million citizens of Gaza to evacuate, which the World Health Organization has called a “death sentence” for vulnerable hospital patients.

Israel is even hoping for greater involvement from the EU, specifically to pressure the PA and Lebanon to keep Hezbollah out of the war.

Time is of the essence. Borrell has already acknowledged the volatility of human security in Palestine as a result of Israeli airstrikes and grey-zone aggression in Gaza, stating that “Some of the actions – and the United Nations has already said that – [such] as cutting water, cutting electricity, cutting food to a mass of civilian people is against international law”.

The Battle for European Consensus

When it comes to the policy towards the region the EU is divided within the institutions, among national members, and within the various partisan affiliations.

Over the past few years, there has been initiative from European diplomats in the region to take a more active role in conflict resolution, yet the overall consensus among the European capitals has been to politically disengage while shielded behind humanitarian aid efforts. For the EU, the perception has been that the costs and challenges of attempting to change the status quo are too high, with benefits that are uncertain. This calculation has led to inaction. Now, the costs of inaction may exceed that of changing the status quo. 

As seen by the buffet of policy decisions made in the week after the Hamas attacks in Israel, the EU institutions are clearly divided. Behind closed doors movers in Brussels, including from within the European Commission, spoke of President von der Leyen acting above her duties. Such sentiment isn’t new but after her visit to Israel it has taken on a more overt form. “The official position of the European Union with any foreign policy [issue] is being fixed — I repeat — by the guidelines,” Borrell told journalists while on his visit to China. He continued, “foreign policy is decided by the leaders of the EU’s 27 countries at international summits, and discussed by foreign ministers in meetings chaired by me.”

Among the member states, Borrell has also hinted at a lack of consensus for continued aid to Palestine, saying that the “overwhelming majority” of members are still in favor. Although, at the national bilateral level, some EU states have suspended their national contributions, including Sweden and Denmark. Germany has made clear that it does not directly aid Palestine, but it does do so through EU channels. EU members are by no means together in presenting a bloc-wide policy.

A Path Forward

A European foreign minister told Euractiv prior to the most recent escalation in Israel and Palestine that the EU has “lots of small and big fires everywhere – and we have no good fire extinguisher at hand.” At present, it is certainly true that the EU has not utilised an effective mechanism or strategy to actively shape the geopolitics that dictate its external relations, let alone in the Levant. However, the EU has the means and incentives to begin doing so now.

As Nora Müller from Körber-Stiftung wrote, the EU has found itself “mismatched” between security interests and “ritualized diplomatic practices,” which has weakened the EU’s ability to act with Weltpolitikfähigkeit, or the capacity of the EU to shape global affairs. 

The EU today needs to bridge that gap, as it once did as a shaper of the Oslo Peace Process. As a means for reasserting itself on the world stage and to do so as a champion for a realistic approach to human rights protections, the EU must take lead in the political renewal of Gaza and support Israel in rooting out Hamas. This would require the EU to lean into its reputation as a neutral broker in the region and as the largest donor to the PA. In practice, this would look like the following:

• Approach the actors in the Levant with one EU voice to propose a coordinated counter-insurgency plan to oust Hamas, coupled with a means for democratic transition in Palestine that achieves the two-state solution and independence for Palestine. While a counter-insurgency in Gaza faces difficulties of a close urban setting and must confront theories such as those like U.S. General Stanley McChrystal’s “COIN mathematics” that the death of one insurgent is the creation of numerous more, with diligence provided by EU oversight and the inclusion of local Palestinians, the threat and influence of Hamas could be diminished.
• This would entail brokering an immediate ceasefire with the intention that Israel’s counter-insurgency will resume; however, only under specific conditions for external oversight and military professionalism that could be delivered in partnership with the EU.
• This would require the EU to propose, in addition to the EU Border Assistance Mission to Rafah, a new peacekeeping mission in Israel and Palestine to which it in parallel has direct access to the Israeli chain of command, to ensure the rules of war are abided by and mitigate unnecessary loss of civilian life, while also having personnel in Gaza communicate with the Palestinians about how the process aids in the creation of their independent state, but also to reframe the Israeli counter-insurgency away from its current reality of a heinously acting Israel and in the direction of defeating the terrorists Hamas.

While this recommendation would require full EU support, the EU must recognise that its position on the world stage requires a stronger presence, or it will be cast aside. Beginning with a more direct policy in the Levant, while necessary to avoid a wider security concern that has the potential for great power conflict, would also uphold the principles the EU so often preaches and, most importantly, could renew global faith in the EU as an independent geopolitical mover.