EU members’ conflicting votes on a bid by Palestine to join Unesco came after negotiations on a common position broke down, a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman confirmed yesterday.
A foreign affairs expert, Martin Scicluna, believes the EU’s failure on this occasion showed “to what extent EU member states are at sixes and sevens on an issue that many previously thought there was agreement on”.
Palestine became a member of Unesco on Monday, with 107 countries voting in favour, 14 against and 52 abstaining.
The Palestinian Ambassador to Malta, Jubran Taweel, expressed his delight, saying it was a “fantastic step for all peace-loving people around the world”.
The overwhelming majority was secured despite US and Israeli threats to cut off funding to Unesco, amounting to over 20 per cent of its budget, if the motion was passed.
Malta voted in favour of the Palestinian bid, saying that, while it wanted secure borders for Israel, at the same time it “recognised the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians to their own state”.
Mr Taweel thanked Malta for its stand, saying its vote in favour had been “expected” and he believed the Maltese delegation had “persuaded a lot of countries to vote in favour” of Palestine’s bid.
The vote, with Europe’s three powerhouses each voting differently, reflects European divisions that had surfaced in the build-up to Palestine’s bid for full UN membership last September,
Despite reported reservations about Palestine’s motion, France eventually backed the bid. Germany, in a reiteration of its opposition to Palestinian recognition at the UN, voted against and the UK abstained.
Europe’s inability to agree, Mr Scicluna said, was all the more galling when one considered the nature of the vote. “Unesco is not all that politicised. One would have thought that we would have found some common ground there.” The split vote, Mr Scicluna added, had exposed fundamental fissures within the EU.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said the vote was “in no way linked to our request to join the United Nations” but there was widespread belief that an eventual vote to upgrade Palestine’s UN status to that of a “non-member state” will break down on similar lines.
Mr Taweel indicated as much, saying that “the Unesco vote is an indication to how things are moving right now within the UN”.
A ministry spokesman said discussions among EU leaders on reaching a common position on Palestine’s UN bid were “ongoing” but, in Mr Scicluna’s eyes, it was now “absolutely impossible” to countenance a common position being reached.
Palestine’s accession to Unesco provoked a funding crisis at the UN agency, with the US and Israel saying they will no longer fund the agency in protest.
It remains unclear how the agency intends to make up for the shortfall and whether other countries’ contributions, including Malta’s, will increase as a result.
A ministry spokesman said it expected Unesco’s next meeting to discuss such funding issues as a matter of priority.
Israel has also said it was mulling sanctions against the Palestinian Authority. Mr Taweel was succinct in his reaction:
“If Israel wants to impose sanctions on the Palestinians, it might as well impose sanctions on the 107 states that voted in favour.”
The threat of sanctions has done little to dampen Palestinian enthusiasm for membership of UN agencies with their top envoy to the UN in Geneva saying yesterday that Palestine would now be applying for membership of 16 other UN agencies.
“We are working on it, one by one,” UN envoy Ibrahim Khraishi said. Unesco membership, he said, “will open the door for us now to go further in our efforts to join other UN agencies”.
A ministry spokesman declined to discuss Malta’s voting intentions in such a scenario, saying each vote would be discussed if and when it was raised.