From the Centre for European Reform, this is the CEO podcast.

It is a critical moment.

If we do not act with urgency, we would then severely undermine the liberal order.

Brexit means Brexit, and we're going to make a success of it.

The wind is back in Europe's sales.

We have now a window of opportunity, but it will not stay open forever.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the CEO podcast. My name is Sophia Besh. Welcome to our first

podcast in the new year and thanks everyone for joining us again. Today I'm in conversation with Beth

Oppenheim, who you know as a podcast host but who is also a research fellow in the CER's London

office and our resident expert on the Middle East peace process. And Beth has

been doing some fascinating research into the EU's role in this process recently. And so I am really

looking forward to getting a short summary of her assessment and her recommendations. Thanks for being on

here, Beth. Oh, thank you, Sophia. Great to be on here and to have a bit of a role reversal

again. Let's get into it. Then when Federica Mogherini took office as the EU's High Representative

for Foreign Policy in November 2014, she said that a two-state solution could be reached within

her five-year term. But now that her successor, the Spanish

Foreign Minister Borrell, has taken over, instead of progress, you say that we have seen

signs of Israel's strengthening its grip over the Palestinian territories and indications that

Palestinian democracy is in a poor state. Could you catch everybody up? Where is the peace

process at present? So I think it probably won't come as a surprise to many people that the general

perception is that the peace process is pretty much stagnant, to put it mildly. Rhetoric and

recriminations are extremely high on both sides. As you've kind of alluded to

...