Jakarta. Indonesia refuses to make any speculations on whether Israel would block it from joining the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) when the group members finally vote on Jakarta’s membership.

Indonesia has been promoting Palestinian statehood, but even more so after the Gaza conflict intensified in October. The Southeast Asian country has also repeatedly condemned Israel’s atrocities in the Palestinian enclave. As the Palestinian issue tops Indonesia’s foreign policy agenda,

Jakarta is currently trying to join the OECD as a means to drive economic growth. However, Indonesia can only secure full membership if it gets approved by all of the group’s members, including Israel.

Even so, Indonesia does not want to speculate on the voting results.

Indonesia has only begun its accession talks with the OECD early this month. In other words, Indonesia still has a long way to go before the OECD members cast their final votes on whether to accept Jakarta as part of their group according to the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s spokesman Lalu Muhamad Iqbal.

As the accession talks have been put in motion, the situation in the Israeli-Palestinian war can change in the future. This includes the probability of the two-state solution -- a plan to create an independent Palestinian state alongside that of Israel.

“We cannot make speculations or a hypothesis that Israel will surely veto [Indonesia’s OECD membership]. There is still a long process ahead. The self-assessment process is not even finished yet,” Lalu told a press briefing in Jakarta on Wednesday. 

“We don’t know what will happen in the next three or five years. Hopefully, within five years, Israel will recognize the two-state solution, and Palestine will be an independent country and a United Nations member by then,” Lalu said.

The OECD is now waiting for Indonesia to submit an initial memorandum. In this document, Indonesia is expected to make self-assessments on whether its existing policies align with the OECD.

The OECD will then launch rigorous technical reviews aimed at evaluating whether Indonesia’s public policies are coherent with the group’s standards. After the reviews are complete, the group’s secretary-general will have to present the relevant documents for the OECD Council -- the organization’s decision-making body represented by all members -- to consider. The council will then decide by unanimity whether to accept Indonesia based on these documents.

The Indonesian government has set up a task force --led by Chief Economic Affairs Minister Airlangga Hartarto-- that will focus on expediting the accession process. Indonesia is keen on completing the entire accession process within 3 years time or by 2027. However, OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said it would be best for Indonesia to not only focus on meeting its personal deadline but also make sure that it gets the reforms right.

“In the end, the most important thing for us is to ensure that we can achieve continuous economic and social reforms in a way that is supported by the public of Indonesia, and deliver genuine benefits to the people,” Cormann told reporters earlier that day. 

The OECD does not set a deadline on when Indonesia should complete whatever it needs to do to prove it is worthy of being part of the club. Cormann said how long the accession process takes would depend on the pace and responsiveness of the Indonesian government to meet the OECD’s standards. 

The OECD Council first agreed to open accession talks with Israel in 2007. Israel also had to undergo a technical review process before it officially became an OECD member in 2010. Indonesia does not have formal diplomatic ties with Israel.

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