Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-04-Speech-4-210"

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"en.20030904.6.4-210"2
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"Mr President, I was interested to hear Mr Tannock remind us that these agreements between the European Community and Israel have been in operation since 1975. I have been in Parliament for 19 years and this issue has regularly come up as a political flashpoint. In fact it was one of the first major flashpoints when I joined Parliament in 1984, yet we still have not reached a satisfactory conclusion. But, as several speakers have already said, we are not really here today to start arguing about the whole question of who is most at fault in this sad and extremely tragic country. I have visited Gaza, because my daughter worked there for several years with the UN, and I know that when the kind of trouble that everyone in Israel is suffering from occurs now, when the borders are closed, Palestinian produce cannot move out of the Gaza Strip. I have spoken before in this House about the dramatic sights I have seen on the streets of Gaza city, where animals were eating the flowers and strawberries that were part of the Palestinian exports from Gaza to Europe. There is a wonderful climate. It is potentially a great source of economic value to the Palestinian people, but every time there was trouble the borders were shut down and the produce was simply left to rot on the streets of Gaza. That makes it different from produce coming out of Israeli settlements – and that is a very real difference. Only the Israeli authorities have the means to eliminate the substantial distortions of the origin rules involving settlement products without causing further inconvenience to the EU, the Member States, Community operators and Israeli exporters. Perhaps without Israel's cooperation the only lawful and effective solution for the EU, short of suspending the agreement, is for the Member States to hold in doubt the origin of virtually all Israeli exports."@en1
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