Berlin Upgrades Relations With Palestinians
I have been wanting to write about an interesting novelty in German-Palestinian relations for a while.
On 18 May 2010, a new type of “governmental” consultation mechanism between the Foreign Ministry and the Palestinian Authority was launched in Berlin.
Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad chaired the first session of a so-called “German-Palestinian Steering Committee” that was attended by their Interior, Economics, Development and Education Ministers.
In the course of the meeting the delegations agreed on a number of measures to intensify Germany’s support for the building of Palestinian state structures in the West Bank.
The meeting also had a clear political message: Germany is willing to put its relations with the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank on a qualitatively new footing. The steering committee will operate just under the level of the format applied with the government of Israel (”Joint governmental consultations”).
However, it clearly resembles the meetings with Israel that have been taking place on a regular basis and in the presence of the respective heads of government since 2008.
This is how the Foreign Office describes its motivation for the initiative.
This is the article that Foreign Minister Westerwelle published in Al Quds newspaper on the day of the meeting in Berlin.