Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-24-Speech-3-181"
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"en.20030924.3.3-181"2
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".
Mr President, the Commission shares the assessment made by the Council Presidency, which can be summarised in a few words: the Middle East peace process has gone off the rails. We believe that the future of the road map depends on a solid and unambiguous commitment by both sides and by the international community. What is lacking is the political will, which is a crucial factor for peace and completely non-existent today. We had hoped that the road map would create the political will to implement the vision of two States, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace. Is this still possible? It is, but only if Israel regains a certain feeling of security, is once again accepted in the region and can have confidence in the Palestinian structures and if at the same time the Palestinians see that Israel accepts their aspiration to build a nation on the territory seized by Israel in 1967, as well as their desire to improve their economic and humanitarian situation.
What needs to be done today to give new impetus to this road map, which is coming apart at the seams?
Israel would have to adopt a sufficient number of measures designed to establish a climate of trust, in particular by stopping the extrajudicial executions and the punitive house demolitions, it would have to prove that all illegal settlements built since September 2000 will be dismantled and impose a freeze on new settlements and resolve the problems caused by the building of the ‘security wall’.
The Palestinians for their part must adopt visible and effective measures to combat the planning or perpetration of terrorist attacks against Israelis by individuals or groups, rein in seditious acts, publicly declaim Israel’s right to exist and speed up preparations for elections, for drafting a constitution and for the participation of civil society in reform.
We believe that the international community must exert its influence in order to resolve the security problem and offer rapid and effective support as sponsors. Tomorrow, in New York, the quartet will meet and the European Union will take the opportunity to attempt to persuade all parties to accept genuine coordination of the quartet as regards the support and follow-up that should be given to this road map.
As the Council Presidency stated, Hamas still appears on the list of terrorist organisations, but banning this movement in the United States and in Europe is not enough. We must go further. Radical forces exert their influence through the social and educational services and we must not content ourselves with helping to cut off their sources of funding. We must also increase the Palestinian authority’s power to provide local services. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) can also provide support in this area. We believe that what improving security and the fight against extremism requires is above all Community-level action. The Commission has announced a programme of support for the reforms to be undertaken by the Palestinian Authority and also various measures aimed at alleviating the economic and humanitarian problems. We estimate that our commitment this year will total around EUR 245 million. We feel encouraged in this course of action by the aid recently donated to the Palestinian Authority by the United States and by the restoration of Israeli tax receipts to the Palestinian Authority. This will not by any means suffice, however, to get the Palestinian Authority up and running again. The economic situation will not improve if the border closures remain in place and Israel, for its part, must help to kick-start the Palestinian Authority. We must also continue to reiterate to all Arab States to put an end to all public and private funding of groups bent on violence and terrorism and to close down the offices of their representations.
We in Europe have much more to offer the people of the Middle East: ever-closer relations thanks to the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and the network of association agreements that is currently being set up. I want you all to know that we are making progress on this matter with Syria, the last country with which negotiations have not been concluded. We have presented the new initiative on the policy of neighbourhood relations in an enlarged Europe, which sets out all the opportunities for closer cooperation to achieve the economic and social integration of the Euro-Mediterranean region. Only progress in the context of the peace process, however, can help our partners in the region to take full advantage of the opportunities with which the European Union will continue to provide them in this field."@en1
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