Israel's ambassador warned: if the cultural agreement with the European Union is not approved, significant political damage will be caused

Alternate Prime Minister Bennett vetoed joining the Creative Europe agreement because it excludes the settlements. A day earlier, Israel's ambassador to the Union Haim Regev sent a telegram to the Foreign Ministry in which he wrote that if Israel cancels the signing at the last minute, significant damage will be caused to its image and its ability to promote agreements with the Union in the future

Barak Ravid

03/10/2022

Monday, October 03, 2022, 06:00

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In the video: The President of the European Union announces that an agreement has been reached on the Russian oil embargo (Photo: Reuters)

Israel's ambassador to the European Union Haim Regev sent a classified telegram to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem warning that if the cultural agreement with the European Union is not approved by the government, significant damage will be caused to any attempt by Israel to reach agreements with the European Union in the future.

why is it important

• The government was supposed to approve the agreement last week, but Alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett vetoed the move at the request of Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, due to the clause in the agreement that excludes settlements in the West Bank.

• Joining the Creative Europe cultural agreement would have given Israeli creators in the fields of cinema, literature and art access to grants from the European Union in the amount of hundreds of millions of Euros.

  Only last year 250 thousand artists around the world received funding as part of this program of the European Union.

Officials in the European Union to the Israeli ambassador and expressed concern about the non-approval of the agreement (Photo: Reuters)

Behind the Scenes

• On September 21, the Israeli Ambassador to the European Union Institutions Haim Regev sent a telegram to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem informing them that the Council of Commissioners of the European Union approved the cultural agreement with Israel called Creative Europe.

  Regev noted that the European Union wants to sign the agreement immediately upon completion of its approval processes by the Israeli government.

• The plan was to approve the agreement during the Israel-European Union summit, known as the "Association Council", which will convene tomorrow (Monday) for the first time in over a decade.

  For years the summit did not take place due to disputes over the Palestinian issue.

• A few days before Regev sent the telegram to Jerusalem, the "Kahalet" forum organization began a campaign against the approval of the agreement by the government because it includes a territorial clause that excludes the settlements in the West Bank.

  The newspaper "Israel Hayom" even published an article on the subject on September 19, and other articles were published in media that are identified with the settlements lobby.

• Following the publications in the Israeli media, officials in the European Union contacted the Israeli ambassador and expressed concern about the non-approval of the agreement on the Israeli side.

  Against this background, Regev sent a telegram to Jerusalem warning of the negative consequences of canceling the agreement.

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vetoed the move.

Bennett (Photo: Reuven Castro)

• The Israeli ambassador wrote in a telegram that he had several conversations with senior officials of the European Foreign Service and the European Commission regarding the territorial clause regarding the settlements.

  According to him, all European officials made it clear to him that the wording of the clause and its implementation will be the same as in previous cases in agreements between Israel and the European Union that were approved during the current government, such as the research and development agreement approved during the Netanyahu government.

• "My interlocutors emphasized that they do not have the authority to change the clause, nor to interpret it differently from what is written. For them, this clause only defines the limitations on the implementation of the plan itself beyond the 1967 lines and does not concern anything else," Regev wrote.

• The Israeli ambassador noted that the European Union approved the agreement with unprecedented speed and efficiency, which shows the goodwill both at the political and professional levels in the European Union.

  He pointed out that delaying the approval of the agreement would damage this goodwill.

• "If Israel cancels the signing of the Creative Europe agreement at the last minute, I estimate that there will be significant damage to Israel's image and its ability to promote agreements with the European Union in the future," Regev wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem.

• The Israeli ambassador noted that in the immediate term Israel will lose a discount of 20 million shekels that it received from the European Union as part of a compromise regarding the funds that Israel needs to invest as part of the agreement.

• "In the event of no signing or new negotiations, I assume that there will not be such a compromise again," Regev wrote. "In the long term - it is difficult to see the European Union once again entering into negotiations on a culture agreement with Israel after two times in which it completed the move and was rejected." .

pressured Bennett to thwart joining the agreement.

Shaked (Photo: Reuven Castro)

the situation picture

• A day after the Israeli ambassador to the European Union sent the telegram to Jerusalem, Alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett addressed Prime Minister Lapid and asked to use his right of veto to remove the approval of the cultural agreement from the government's agenda.

• Bennett stated that he prevented joining the agreement because in his opinion a transitional government should avoid significant controversial moves, certainly if they are not urgent.

  Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked claimed that she pressured Bennett to thwart joining the agreement.

reminder

• The cultural agreement with the European Union was presented to the government for the first time in 2017.

  Even then, the agreement included a territorial clause that excluded the settlements.

  When this became public, Culture Minister Miri Regev demanded hours before the government vote that the issue be removed from the agenda.

• When the new government was formed, the cultural agreement returned to the agenda.

  Last June, the government approved a budget of over NIS 30 million for Israel's participation in the cultural agreement with the European Union.

  Prime Minister at the time Naftali Bennett and Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked did not object.

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