ABSTRACT
Lessons from the EU’s role as a state-builder in the case of the Occupied Palestinian Territories The central aim of this book was to offer an analysis of the distinctive role of the EU as a state-builder in the case of the OPTs. The book started by offering an overview of the literature on liberal peace and peacebuilding as well as their criticisms. This was mainly used as a contextual platform to help the reader identify the antecedents of the state-building project. The second chapter offered an overview of the distinctive role of the EU as a state-builder and of the tools and policies that the EU has at its disposal in order to ‘build’ states. Moreover, the chapter included a brief analysis of the EU’s role as a state-builder in the cases of BiH and Kosovo in order to offer a comparative insight into how it has approached the state-building project in these two cases. Thus, the first chapter, discussing the literature on liberal peace, peacebuilding and state-building, helped to identify the functions that a modern state should be able to run, while the second chapter, engaging with the literature on the EU and conflict resolution, helped to identify the tools, policies and mechanisms that the latter has at its disposal in order to be a state-builder. The synthesis of these two distinctive literatures resulted in the setting up of three criteria on which EU effectiveness in the state-building project was tested – namely the generation of legitimacy, coherence (internal and on the ground) and regulation of violence/ability of enforcement. Based on these criteria, the next chapters analysed the effectiveness of the EU with regard to the ‘high politics’ of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, economic initiatives as well as initiatives in the domains of SSR, JSR and the rule of law in the OPTs. In the case of the OPTs, the EU deployed three of the six tools, policies and mechanisms and tools that were identified in the second chapter as being at its disposal in order to ‘build’ states; these include ‘high politics’ diplomatic activity and economic partnerships/provision of aid (analysed in Chapter 3), the deployment of two CSDP missions, EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah (analysed in Chapter 4), and broader JSR and rule of law imperatives (analysed in Chapter 5). Through these, the EU has managed to: ‘feed’ the international community with ideas on what constitutes the best solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
shape and promote its own policies towards the conflicting parties, acquire a role in SSR (broadly defined) on the ground, promote liberal democratic principles, become the biggest donor of the PA and, in general, legitimise itself as one of the main actors aiming for the resolution of this long-standing conflict. The question that remains is, could the EU have been more effective as a state-builder? In other words, has the EU maximised its effectiveness in the different aspects of ‘high’ and ‘low’ politics? Three parameters on which the EU’s effectiveness could be tested were identified in Chapter 2. These were the following: the generation of legitimacy, coherence and regulation of violence/ability of enforcement. A closer look at Chapters 3, 4 and 5 of this book will help us to draw some important conclusions with regard to these parameters.
