Payer not a Player – The Marginal Role of the European Union in the Middle East Peace Process

Abstract: The European Union (EU) has been engaged in Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the early 1970’s. The Union has since then tried to gain a role in the diplomatic process by different means, but without any particularly success to be able to influence the bilateral talks. One has in recent years tried to develop the union towards a more coherent collective foreign policy in order to adopt a stronger political role in worldwide politics in general, and in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in particular. In spite of these improvements of the EU institutions, it seems as if the union only holds the capacity to steer the image of itself to a certain extent. There is a problem of how the EU is perceived by the involved parties in the negotiations, which restrain the Union to gain a bigger role in the diplomatic process. Images of the EU as a marginal player in the negotiations, prevails. This thesis sets out to examine the underlying power dynamics that may underpin the image of the EU as a weak player in the peace process. The theory of Path Dependence has been employed which provides the tools of a three-stage model, whereas each stage corresponds to different periods of the EU’s involvement in the peace process since the 1970’s. The United States (US) and Israel have not been in favour of a strong EU participation, thus kept the Union at the margin of the bilateral talks throughout the years. Consequently, one can distinguish how the image of the EU as a marginal player has come to develop, and is continuously replicated in the negotiating context.