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Most European countries have either turned down their invitations to join United States President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d for overseeing the reconstruction of Gaza \u2013 or politely suggested they are \u201cconsidering\u201d it, citing concerns.<\/p>\n
From within the European Union, only Hungary and Bulgaria have accepted. That is a better track record of unity than the one displayed in 2003, when then-US President George W Bush called on member states to join his invasion of Iraq.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Spain, Britain, Poland, Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia said \u201cyes\u201d.<\/p>\n France turned the invitation down on the grounds that Trump\u2019s board \u201cgoes beyond the framework of Gaza and raises serious questions, in particular with respect to the principles and structure of the United Nations, which cannot be called into question\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump pointedly did not invite Denmark, a close US ally, following a diplomatic fracas in which he had threatened to seize Greenland, a Danish territory, by force.<\/p>\n The US leader signed the charter for his Board of Peace on January 22 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, calling it \u201cone of the most consequential bodies ever created\u201d.<\/p>\n It has come across to many of the countries invited to join it as perhaps too consequential \u2013 an attempt to supplant the United Nations, whose mandate the board is meant to be fulfilling.<\/p>\n Although Trump said he believed the UN should continue to exist, his recent threats suggest that he would not respect the UN Charter, which forbids the violation of borders.<\/p>\n That impression was strengthened by the fact that he invited Russia to the board, amid its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump is thinking about the interior of the US. Things aren\u2019t going well. He needs a big win ahead of the November midterms,\u201d said Angelos Syrigos, a professor of international law at Panteion University in Athens.<\/p>\n The US president has spent his first year in office looking for foreign policy triumphs he can sell at home, said Syrigos, citing the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the bombing of Iran and his efforts to end the Ukraine war.<\/p>\n Trump has invited board members to contribute $1bn each for a lifetime membership, but has not spelled out how the money will be spent.<\/p>\n His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is a member of the executive board.<\/p>\n \u201cHow will this thing function? Will Trump and his son-in-law administer it?\u201d asked Syrigos.<\/p>\n Catherine Fieschi, a political scientist and fellow at the European University Institute, believed there was a more ambitious geopolitical goal as well.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s as though Trump were gathering very deliberately middle powers \u2026 to defang the potential that these powers have of working independently and making deals,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Much like Bush\u2019s 2003 \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d against Iraq, Trump\u2019s initiative has cobbled together an ensemble of countries whose common traits are difficult to discern, ranging from Vietnam and Mongolia to Turkiye and Belarus.<\/p>\n Fieschi believed Trump was trying to corral middle powers in order to forestall other forms of multilateralism, a pathway to power that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney outlined in his speech at Davos, which so offended Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: [to] compete with each other for favour, or to combine to create a third path with impact,\u201d Carney had said, encouraging countries to build \u201cdifferent coalitions for different issues\u201d and to draw on \u201cthe power of legitimacy, integrity and rules\u201d.<\/p>\n He decried the \u201crupture in the world order \u2026 and the beginning of a brutal reality where geopolitics among the great powers is not subject to any constraints\u201d.<\/p>\n After the speech, Trump soon rescinded Canada\u2019s invitation.<\/p>\n Countering agglomerations of power and legitimacy was Trump\u2019s goal, Fieschi believed.<\/p>\n \u201cHere you bind them into an organisation that in some ways offers a framework with Trump in it and the US in it, and implies constraints,\u201d said Fieschi. \u201cIt\u2019s not so much benign multilateralism as stopping the middle powers getting on with their hedging and with their capacity to have any kind of autonomy, strategic and otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, she said, Trump was suggesting that the Board of Peace \u201cmight give them more power than they have right now in the UN\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump thinks this is like a golf club and therefore he\u2019s going to charge a membership fee,\u201d Fieschi said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it was a reconstruction fee [for Gaza], I don\u2019t think people would necessarily baulk at that,\u201d she noted, adding that the fee smacked of \u201ccrass oligarchic motivation\u201d.<\/p>\n The Board of Peace is called into existence by last November\u2019s UN Security Council Resolution 2803 to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza.<\/p>\n It is defined as \u201ca transitional administration\u201d meant to exist only \u201cuntil such time as the Palestinian Authority (PA) has satisfactorily completed its reform program \u2026 and [can] effectively take back control of Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s charter for the board makes no mention of Gaza, nor of the board\u2019s limited lifespan. Instead, it broadens the board\u2019s mandate to \u201careas affected or threatened by conflict\u201d, and says it \u201cshall dissolve at such time as the Chairman considers necessary or appropriate\u201d.<\/p>\n China, which has presented itself as a harbinger of multipolarity and a challenger of the US-led world order, rejected the invitation.<\/p>\n \u201cNo matter how the international landscape may evolve, China will stay firmly committed to safeguarding the international system with the UN at its core,\u201d said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun last week.<\/p>\n The UN itself appears to be offended by Trump\u2019s scheme.<\/p>\n \u201cThe UN Security Council stands alone in its Charter-mandated authority to act on behalf of all Member States on matters of peace and security,\u201d wrote UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on social media on Monday, January 26.<\/p>\n \u201cNo other body or ad-hoc coalition can legally require all Member States to comply with decisions on peace and security,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Guterres was calling for a reform that would strengthen the legitimacy of the UN Security Council by better reflecting the balance of power in the world as it is, 81 years after the body was formed. But his statement can also be read as a veiled criticism of Trump\u2019s version of the Board of Peace.<\/p>\n Transparency and governance are problematic, too.<\/p>\n Trump is appointing himself chairman of the board, with power to overrule all members. He gets to appoint the board\u2019s executive, and makes financial transparency optional, saying the board \u201cmay authorise the establishment of accounts as necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Most European countries have either turned down their invitations to join United States President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d for overseeing the reconstruction of Gaza \u2013 or politely suggested they are \u201cconsidering\u201d it, citing concerns. From within the European Union, only Hungary and Bulgaria have accepted. That is a better track record of unity than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
\u2018Trump needs a big win ahead of midterms\u2019<\/h2>\n
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