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Europe Slowly Understands the Importance of the Abraham Accords
(EU Reporter-Ireland) Yossi Lempkowicz - A symposium organized last week by the European Coalition for Israel in the European Parliament brought together stakeholders both from the European Commission and the European Parliament with some of the key states behind the Abraham Accords to discuss the next steps of the normalization process. After the signing of the Abraham Accords, which normalized Israel's relations with several Arab states in 2020, the EU had remained on the sidelines. Israel's ambassador to the EU and NATO, Haim Regev, said, "It took time for us to convince them that this was a deep and dramatic development, that they should be part of it. In the last three months, we see a real change." Last month for the first time, Israel participated in a trilateral workshop in Rabat with the EU and Morocco, financed by the EU, that will lead to water projects, the construction of new desalination plants, and wastewater management. EU Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy Oliver Varhelyi has allocated 10 million euros to expand those kinds of activities. There is a new steering committee led by the EU embassy in Tel Aviv which together with Israel is looking into additional projects. "Soon we hope to have within the European Parliament an Abraham Accords network. We have also held a joint seminar in NATO that brought experts from Israel, Bahrein, and Morocco to see what we can do together," said Regev. "There is a growing interest and appetite in the EU to be part of the Abraham Accords."