By Publio Manuel Isaldi
Everyone knew this year´s 20th anniversary of the first genocide committed on European soil since World War II was going to be special. There was of course the symbolic twenty-year mark, which prompted a flurry of articles from left and right on everything from the infamous UN Dutch peacekeepers who stood aside while the Bosnian Serbs separated women from men to the labours of International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia
Shaken by some 1,000 migrant deaths in the Mediterranean in the past few days, while trying to cross through irregular ways into Europe, the EU’s foreign and home affairs ministers agreed today in Luxembourg to a ten point action plan to avoid such tragedies happening in the future. The plan foresees more resources for the joint operations Poseidon and Triton carried out within the mandate of Frontex, setting up a joint task force to identify human trafficking and smuggling networks, and sharing the responsibility of refugee resettlement among EU countries
On 16 March 2015 the Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, was in Brussels for talks with High Representative Mogherini and the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and the UK. This was part of the six-power talks (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) with Iran on the latter’s uranium enrichment programme. 16 March was also the day of the EU Foreign Affairs Council (EU Foreign Ministers) in Brussels, chaired by Ms. Mogherini.
In a lukewarm compromise among its main parties, the European Parliament declared on 17 December 2014 that it “supports in principle recognition of Palestinian statehood and the two-state solution, and believes these should go hand in hand with the development of peace talks, which should be advanced.” This comes in the wake of similar, and stronger, votes in European national parliaments. It is not enough; the EU needs to drastically review its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in light of the growing sense of unease across Europe regarding Israel’s aggressive settlement policy, and the lack of progress in the peace process.
