Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-19-Speech-3-104"
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"en.20000119.5.3-104"2
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"I am very grateful to the President of the Council for the statement this morning on the Middle East at the beginning of this debate and for hearing some of Minister Gama’s insights, as he arrived hot-foot from the region. My only regret is that my own commitment to open the European Reconstruction Agency on Monday meant that I could not take part myself in that trip to the Middle East, even though, as I mentioned earlier in the day – which is another story – events conspired to maroon me at Munich airport rather than transport me to Thessaloniki. Such is life.
The Commission is already considering the implications for the European Union of the recent encouraging developments. We intend to share our more detailed thoughts on the matter with Parliament and Council soon. But let me remind honourable Members that the European Union is no slouch when it comes to financial support for the peace process. We are the largest of all donors to the Palestinians. We have also offered very substantial support to Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. With the Israelis we have established closer cooperation in a number of areas of particular interest to them.
The Community contribution of over EUR 600 million in grants and loans between 1994 and 1998 effectively underpinned the Palestinian authority and contributed substantially towards the reconstruction of the deteriorated physical infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza. European Union Member States together contributed another EUR 860 million during that crucial period.
In this context, let me applaud the important steps that the Palestinian authority has recently taken to improve budgetary transparency. President Arafat will be meeting the Council of Ministers next week. This will be a good opportunity to address the need to take similarly courageous steps to improve the Palestinian administration and to bolster the rule of law. The Commission is actively involved in those efforts.
The Commission has also stepped up its planned support for regional cooperation projects between Israelis and Arabs. We committed more than EUR 20 million for such projects last year. This package included renewed assistance for people-to-people activities and cross-border cooperation where Israelis and Arabs meet on non-governmental and expert levels. Members will recall that the European Union is the largest financial donor to the overall efforts in bringing reconciliation to the people of the Middle East.
A number of issues naturally emerge as additional potential targets of Community support in the coming phase of the peace process – among them, helping to consolidate a Golan settlement both in terms of contributing to security arrangements and supporting demining and the rebuilding of communities in the Golan Heights. Syrian economic development will need assistance for the transition from a wartime to a peace economy. Reconstruction and rehabilitation of southern Lebanon, the only Middle Eastern area with an ongoing military conflict, will also demand considerable efforts. We also need to continue our support for economic reform and social development in Lebanon as a whole. A solution is needed to the Palestinian refugee problem – these are the largest group of refugees in the world, numbering nearly 5 million people – an indication of the enormous challenges ahead. We must support initiatives increasing the availability and improving the distribution and management of the region's very scarce water resources.
Lastly, but maybe most importantly, we are encouraging closer regional cooperation in a number of areas, bringing all the countries concerned together in a joint endeavour to address their common problems.
It is already apparent that the financial resources currently available for Community assistance to this part of the world will not be sufficient for the magnitude of support that will be required in the event of permanent peace. I want to underline that point. I wish insistently to remind the Council and, should it be necessary, Parliament, that we should not continue to allow a gap to develop between our rhetoric and what we are actually capable of doing.
I repeat that a change in the politics of the Middle East will require a gear change in the support that we shall be asked and expected to provide. I hope I can add that we will want to provide that.
We have made progress in recent months and weeks, as Mr Gama mentioned earlier. But it is inevitably going to be a tough process with difficulties and disappointments on the way. We will do all we can to help the process to a successful conclusion and to meet the obligations and challenges that will be created by that outcome.
Lastly, I will repeat for some who have entered the Chamber in the last few minutes, what I said at the outset of my remarks: that I will not be able to stay until the end of the debate, largely as a result of having assumed that the debate was taking place this morning and having fixed a meeting on the Balkans for this evening. I hope the House will understand that.
I hope that honourable Members will excuse me if I am not able to stay to the end of the debate as I would, in all normal circumstances, wish to do. The debate was fixed for this morning and on that basis I had arranged to see visitors from the Balkans this evening. So I hope I can count on the understanding of the House on this occasion. It is not something, I assure you, which I would wish to make a practice of.
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Like honourable Members, I welcome the United States’ efforts that have relaunched the Syrian/Israeli negotiations, despite the Syrian decision that they needed more time before resuming the talks that were scheduled to start again today. There is reasonable hope that a basis for a peace agreement can be built in the near future. I also hope that progress in the Syrian track will pave the way for an early resumption of Lebanese/Israeli talks which could then advance in parallel towards an overall deal on Israel's relations with its northern neighbours.
At the same time we must not lose sight of the Palestinian track. The situation of the Palestinians has always been the core issue of the conflict. A fair and, indeed, generous deal with them remains the key to lasting peace in the Middle East. Israelis and Palestinians have made substantial progress in implementing the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum. Although there has been some slippage, I trust that the remaining Israeli troop redeployments will materialise soon.
Similarly, despite the indication the day before yesterday that the timetable for the Framework Agreement on permanent status has been pushed beyond the mid-February deadline, I very much hope that the much more important September deadline for the final agreement on permanent status will be reached. I was reassured that this was also the view of Prime Minister Barak and President Arafat, when they met on Monday.
Honourable Members will know that one particular concern of ours has been that there should be a resumption of progress on the multilateral track. This is far from straightforward but we will do what we can to make this possible, in close liaison with the US and Russian co-sponsors as well as the regional parties. We are charged with particular responsibility for the promotion of regional economic development.
The beginning of the talks with Syria paved the way for a convening of the multilateral steering group in Moscow at the end of the month. I look forward to attending that meeting and hope that at last we can begin to push things forward again.
The European Union has an important role to play in the peace process, as all sides – Palestinians, Israelis, their Arab neighbours and the United States – have acknowledged.
Nor is our role confined to that of banker. We must be prepared to act swiftly to support the consolidation of peace in the region. But we should not kid ourselves: a comprehensive Middle East peace deal comes with a hefty price tag."@en1
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