War & Peace Quote by Goran Persson

Diplomatic language can be a kind of velvet glove: soft enough to avoid offense, firm enough to leave fingerprints. Goran Persson's line is built to do exactly that. By locating the sentiment in "the hope of the European Union", he turns a political demand into an almost moral aspiration, a posture that sounds benign while still exerting pressure. "Hope" is nonbinding, but it is also a spotlight: if Sharon deviates, the EU can claim disappointment rather than confrontation, preserving leverage without triggering a public rupture.

The phrasing pins agency squarely on Ariel Sharon. "Will keep the peace process alive" implies the process is fragile and that Sharon, specifically, holds the oxygen mask. That is both a plea and a quiet warning, shaped by Sharon's reputation at the time as a hardliner: the EU is signaling that continuity, not reinvention, is the acceptable path. "Continue the dialogue" is another loaded softness. Dialogue is the minimum viable product of peacemaking, a word that lowers the bar from settlement to conversation, useful when outcomes are politically toxic.

Then comes the most revealing clause: "according to the wishes of all the parties involved". It's a classic EU move, packaging legitimacy as inclusivity. The subtext is that any unilateral action will be framed as illegitimate not because the EU opposes it outright, but because it violates an internationalized norm of process. Persson isn't promising peace; he's policing the narrative conditions under which peace can be pursued.