ABSTRACT
The year 2013 was a typical year for European Union (EU)–Israeli relations. On the one hand, the Union continued deepening and strengthening its relationship with the Jewish State, offering Israel a ‘Special Privileged Partnership’ (European Council 2014), along with upgrading its aviation agreement, ratifying the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ACAA) and signing an agreement on Israel’s full participation in the new EU Research Programme – Horizon 2020. On the other hand, the EU continued showing its dissatisfaction with the Israeli government for its practices in the Occupied Territories (OT), its discriminatory policies towards its Arab minority, as well as its legislative initiatives aimed at curtailing the freedoms of Israeli non-governmental organisation (NGOs; European Commission 2014). In 2013, the EU also published its Guidelines prohibiting the allocation of funds to Israeli entities in the OT (European Commission 2013). Indeed, EU policies during 2013, as we show below, are consistent with the Union’s actorness in the Middle East peace process (MEPP) and the statements it has made over the past four decades, revealing that, with some minor exceptions, the Member States’ economic interests are almost totally divorced from the EU’s normative political stance.
