Like many leaders facing dire straits domestically, French President Macron hoped his control of foreign policy might allow him to claw back some of his lost prestige. And so did “Jupiter in Retrograde” scamper down to Sharm El-Sheikh to witness the signing of the Gaza ceasefire deal. Sadly for the hyperkinetic Macron, neither he nor any European head of state played a role in brokering the agreement, which was signed by Donald Trump and the leaders of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. Macron, along with Chancellor Merz, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and EU Council President Antonio Costa were limited to providing applause at appropriate moments, like genteel fans at a golf tournament.
Back in Brussels, EU grandees are scrambling to claim a place on the board implementing the deal, chaired by President Trump and administered by former British PM Tony Blair. Foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas opined that “…Europe has a great role [to play]” based on its status as “the largest financial backer of the Palestinian Authority and Gaza’s biggest humanitarian donor.” Given the fraught negotiations over the EU’s next seven-year budget, it is unclear how much money the EU will be able to devote to the colossal expense of reconstructing Gaza. Macron is certainly in no position to offer more than token assistance, in light of the apparently irreducible deficits racked up by the French state.
Even should the EU and its member states assume a major financial role in rebuilding Gaza, it is not clear that this alone will buy the Europeans a leadership role in administering the peace. The vast monies funnelled by the EU to Palestine gained it no standing in the ceasefire talks, and no discernible leverage with the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. European money served to liberate Palestinian leaders from the need to provide for their people: EU foreign aid would feed them, provide them with medical care, even pay their civil servants. European funding of the UN Relief and Works Agency found its way into the tunnels and terror infrastructure built by Hamas beneath medical facilities and schools. The EU never managed to extract a credible audit of its aid, and never succeeded in reforming the toxic lessons taught in the schools it built. How much EU money ultimately went toward the bounties paid by the PA to suicide bombers remains unknown given the opaque accounting in Ramallah condoned by Brussels.
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