Territorial Borders and Functional Regimes in EU-Israeli Agreements

In the framework chapter of this volume, Del Sarto (2015) argues that Israel and Palestine may be conceptualised as the EU’s borderlands (i.e. hybrid spaces in which different types of borders coexist and partially overlap). When borderlands are created, territorial and functional borders blur and/or overlap, thus creating forms of variable geometry, which are determined by the policy under consideration. However, the situation becomes more complicated when the EU signs agreements with countries that have disputed/occupied1 territories, such as in the case of Israel-Palestine. In these cases, territorial borders lie at the heart of the problem. Against this backdrop, this chapter asks about the implications when the EU’s practice of exporting its rules to the neighbourhood, extending its legal frameworks to these countries without incorporating them into its territory, is confronted with disputed/contested territorial borders. How does the different interpretation of the territorial scope of agreements affect EU policies, as well as its bilateral relations with both Israel and the Palestinians?