What are the popular and parliamentary options for Jordan to drop the Israeli gas agreement?

Mahmoud Al-Sharaan-Amman

Jordanian popular options are narrowing in the face of the flow of Israeli gas to the Kingdom, especially after the House of Representatives submitted a draft law prohibiting its import, although the parliamentary move did not affect the continuation of that agreement between Amman and Tel Aviv.

The exhaustion of options before the national campaign to drop the Israeli gas agreement, "enemy gas occupation", is evident, after three weeks of demonstrating and protesting in cities and governorates.

The campaign sought during the past period to use pressure papers, including submitting a report to the Prosecutor against three prime ministers and their ministers, including the current Prime Minister Omar Al-Razzaz, and a complaint to the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission about the existence of suspicions of corruption in the agreement, but those steps did not succeed.

Popular options
The campaign - which during the last period sought to use pressure cards against the agreement to stop the flow of Israeli gas - sees that there are new steps, according to the speech of General Coordinator Hisham Bustani.

A gardener talks to Al Jazeera Net - in a sharp tone - about the next options, as the protest in the center of the capital is no longer sufficient, and he adds, "We have a map of protest stances and marches against the gas agreement, so change comes from the street."

He describes the deputies' move as "catastrophic" in the absence of real government promises to introduce and amend the law, revealing communication with some deputies to accelerate the presentation of the law to the council before the end of the regular session.

Two options for representatives
The House of Representatives has two options, the first of which is constitutional, pending the presentation of the proposal from the government and its transformation into a draft law, in coordination with the relevant authorities to formulate it, and send it to the Legislative Council and the opinion, which in turn will study it.

After that, the Court returns the law - after its approval by the Ministerial Legal Committee - to the Council of Ministers so that it can be approved and sent until the time it is presented to the National Assembly.

The second option includes a parliamentary move to monitor the government, to rush the law through a memorandum of confidence that was signed by 29 deputies protesting the agreement and the government's economic policy.

Parliamentary fears appear - Al-Jazeera Net listened to - through the government's delay in proceeding with the procedures of the law, and buying time until the end of the current regular session next May 10, which is the last of the life of the current House of Representatives, in light of the recent escalation of the dissolution of the parliament, except If King Abdullah II calls for an extraordinary session.

Article 95 of the constitution compels the government to place the parliamentary proposal in the form of a draft law, and present it to the council in the same session, or the one after it, which means that representatives must limit the necessity of moving to introduce the law during the current session, because the parliament’s life ends at the end of September of this year, and it is deported to the government And the next deputies.

Effective representative tools
The parliamentary proposal met with widespread popular criticism, but it did not cancel the gas agreement concluded, and it will not apply retroactively, as it stipulated that "any government ministries, institutions and companies owned by it are prohibited to import gas or any petroleum derivatives from the Zionist entity."

Parliament Speaker Atef Tarawneh comments on the criticism by saying that it is not permissible to put the stick with wheels, and to accuse the government of delaying. The parliament did not delay this step, as some votes claim.

He adds to Al-Jazeera Net that in March 2019, the parliament presented a general discussion of the gas agreement following a memorandum signed by more than a hundred lawmakers, and insisted on its position rejecting the agreement.

Regarding the use of the government’s no-confidence memo sheet, Tarawneh responds with a question: “What if we presented the memo and got an abstention ?! We have fortified the government and the agreement, and in this case neither we nor anyone who comes after us can open the Israeli gas file, and we may not say: If (The government) did not respond to the confidence placed in it. "

Al-Tarawneh continues his speech that “the urgency characteristic is not constitutionally binding on the government, but the Council has control and constitutional tools to exercise its true role, and the Prime Minister has the right to study the consequences of law and wait to take legal advice.”

Representatives agree on the need to add the phrase "retroactively" in order to cancel the gas agreement with the "Zionist entity" during the presentation of the law to the Council.

The first batches of Israeli gas arrived at the beginning of this year, and the agreement stipulates that the Kingdom will be provided with about 45 billion cubic meters of natural gas valued at $ 10 billion over 15 years, as of January 1, 2020.

The Energy Ministry confirmed earlier that the price of returning from that agreement amounts to $ 1.5 billion, once paid a penalty clause, pointing out that "there is no cost on the gas pipeline to Jordan."

Political will
The government did not issue any comment on the parliament’s proposal, and an official source for Al-Jazeera Net indicates that the government is obligated to deal with the constitution with the law proposal, by studying it and sending it to the Legislation and Opinion Bureau, then returning it and presenting it to the parliament.

Popular voices speak of a clear absence of political will to withdraw or withdraw from the agreement, which writer and political analyst Jihad Al-Mansi does not agree with, who believes that the agreement file can be placed on the table because the (Jordanian-Israeli) relationship is not balanced in the current period.

Al-Mansi notes - during his talk with Al-Jazeera Net - that the agreement is political in nature, and is governed by the regional political circumstance, and the most important tense relationship between Amman and Tel Aviv in the presence of continuous Israeli harassment through hinting and declaring against the Kingdom.

He concludes by saying that there is no clear vision with the current government of the political clash with the House of Representatives in the agreement file, especially since the ball today is in its court, but it is waiting for a signal from the state agencies to deal in accordance with the upcoming official plan, whether by continuing to flow or stop the gas.