EU High Representative Kaja Kallas has attended the Arab League foreign ministers’ meeting currently being held in Amman, Jordan. However, European foreign ministers largely declined to attend the meeting despite an invitation, leaving Vice-Commissioner Kallas as the main European representative present at the gathering.
Malta was one of only five European countries that had intended to participate. The absence of European ministers places even greater responsibility on the EU High Representative to act not only as the representative of the EU institutions, but also as a broader representative of collective European interests.
The EU’s High Representative held a meeting with Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on the sidelines of the Arab League meetings. The two discussed the strategic partnership between Jordan and the European Union, regional de-escalation, Palestine and the wider crisis in the Middle East. Minister Safadi also raised Israel’s illegal measures in the occupied West Bank, including settlement expansion, settler violence, land confiscation and violations against Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.
The meeting took place as Jordan hosted both an Arab consultative meeting and the resumed 165th ordinary session of the Council of the Arab League at ministerial level. The agenda was dominated by the war in Gaza and Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, the Persian Gulf and the wider regional escalation caused by the US-Israeli war with Iran.
During the resumed session, the Arab League approved Nabil Fahmy as its new Secretary-General, replacing Ahmed Aboul Gheit. Fahmy will begin a five-year term on 1 July. He is a veteran Egyptian diplomat, a former Egyptian Foreign Minister, and served as Egypt’s ambassador to the United States between 1999 and 2008. He also founded the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo and is currently its dean emeritus.
His appointment follows the Arab League’s long-standing tradition of appointing an Egyptian diplomat as Secretary-General, reflecting Egypt’s central role in the organisation, whose headquarters are in Cairo.
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