Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-09-Speech-2-064"
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"en.20040309.5.2-064"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, what we are discussing here is the 1995 Association Agreement. I have absolutely no objections to this agreement in itself. It contains fundamental standards and values that demonstrate respect and, in itself, we can support Israel as a democracy. That is not where the problem lies. What I find incomprehensible, however, and the reason I have asked these questions, is that the European Union has been allowing Israel to violate the rules of origin in the agreement for years. These rules of origin – this is child’s play for you, of course – state that Israel is not permitted to sell products from the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as though they originated from Israel itself; otherwise, the products from the illegal settlements would wrongfully benefit from favourable import duties in Europe.
As Mr Lagendijk said, this is a political matter. I also know that the European Commission addressed Israel in this matter and, in reply, was told of Israel’s adamantine position that it considers the settlements to be Israeli territory. European governments are not responding, and are thus acquiescing in the violation of the agreement that they themselves adopted. This makes us jointly responsible for the continuation of the policy of colonisation, one of the greatest obstacles to peace. This is the crux of the matter, in my opinion. We must not share responsibility for this.
Under the EC Treaty, the Community Customs Code and the Association Agreement, Member States are obliged to refuse to give preferential treatment to the import of products from the settlements. As the Commission and as guardian of the treaties, you must monitor Member States’ compliance with these obligations.
These problems must be solved, and without delay, and so I ask the Commissioner whether he now genuinely intends to put an end to these matters and come up with a genuine legislative solution, so that a uniform verification procedure can be followed in the Member States. The Member States’ customs authorities will then be able to collect ordinary import duties for products from settlements without the importers being able to contest this.
This would seem to me an extremely neat solution: not for or against Israel; not for or against the Palestinians. The issue is merely that we do not want to be jointly responsible for the problem of settlements, and I ask, therefore, that you submit any solutions to Parliament."@en1
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