Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-26-Speech-3-123"
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"en.20050126.7.3-123"2
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".
Thank you very much, Mr President, and thank you very much to all the very honourable Members who have been kind enough to stay with us until the end of this long sitting on a key issue, a fundamental issue, which perhaps deserves more attention from Parliament given the times we are living through. I would like to say that all the Members who have spoken have spoken with sincerity, with a strength and a hope which I believe represent the spirit not just of the European Parliament, but also of the majority, and hopefully all, of the citizens of the Union.
That is what must be done, therefore. And there is one thing I would also like to say, to Parliament and to my Israeli friends: you must stop making any decision that goes against any possible final agreements. This is very important, it is very simple to say but very difficult to do. But no decision should be made which cannot be reversed when the time comes to take decisions on the final agreements and some decisions being taken at the moment are going to hinder or even prevent what many believe those agreements should contain: the fundamental parameters of the final status.
That is something we had to say in a friendly way, and at this time when Israel is commemorating very sad times, very bitter times for which we Europeans should take great responsibility, with the friendship and principles which should be at the hearts of we Europeans, who are so responsible for so many things, we should say it as friends, as I have said, so that they really listen to us, because what we are saying moves in the direction of peace and not in the opposite direction. That is what I wanted to say to you, ladies and gentlemen, and I would like to thank those of you have stayed with us until this hour, on my own behalf, and I hope also on behalf of my good friend the Commissioner Benita Ferrero, whom I would like to thank for being here with us.
There is a lot of work ahead of us and we need the help of everybody. This is not going to be easy, it is going to be very difficult, but we must win this battle for peace, not just for Israel and Palestine, but, as many people have said, for regional peace. If there is peace in Israel and in Palestine, there will be more possibility of regional peace, and I would have much to say in response to what you have said about Iraq, but I do not believe that this is a day for mixing up the two different debates. Sunday comes in four or five days time, there will be other debates on Iraq, but let us be in no doubt that that evolution will come about.
I therefore come to my final comment: over recent years we have seen Israel and Palestine in what we could describe as a situation of crisis management. From now on we must return to politics, to politics with a capital P, and achieve results, since we will then have clear objectives, and if we have clear objectives and the political will to achieve them, we will achieve them. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry about the time and thank you to all the honourable Members for being with us throughout this very long day. Thank you.
I believe that today, from this point of view, has been a day of emotion, a day to allow our emotions and values to emerge, for us to express ourselves physically and verbally. I would like to say that the time has come from now on for these sittings to begin in a real sense to pursue an objective. We should not just allow our emotions to outweigh our thoughts, but we should begin to show signs of where we want to go and how we want to move forward. I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that following the historic times – and they should be described as historic – we have experienced, the European Union should implement a clear action programme, as we are doing and as we are explaining to Parliament. And the final results of the programme should be the creation of two States and most importantly the Palestinian state, which is the one that does not yet exist.
And I believe that we cannot go on talking and talking unless we ensure that we are gradually taking the steps necessary to make that a reality within a useful period of time. I would like to say that, from the point of view of our Palestinian friends, what they have now is not a State, but rather a situation prior to a State, which I would like to call a pre-State, and what we have to do is help them in the most effective way possible to make the reforms necessary for them to have a State which is viable and not a State that fails, but one that is consolidated. To that end, there is no question that we must help them to reform and adapt their own structure. Having a pre-State with the limited responsibilities of a pre-State is not the same as taking on all the responsibilities of a State, which do not just include issues relating to the economy. Here I would like to speak in defence of the Commission, of Parliament and of the European Union as a whole. The way in which the European Union spends money and the way in which Mr Fayyad, who is in charge of finance for the Palestinian Authority, spends money, is exemplary.
And I would like the Members of this Parliament to see this and for the citizens of Europe to know it too. The efforts of Mr Fayyad, who is in charge of finance, together with the efforts that the Commission and all of you and the whole of the European Community have made, are extraordinary and exemplary and I would like to see many other countries, with much more history, who are not pre-States like the Palestinians, having the same capacity to manage their money and doing so in the way they do.
Secondly, there is no question that being a State does not just mean having economic structures, it also means having security structures and today there is no State, but rather a pre-State, and we must therefore help them so that when they do have a State, they have solid security structures. The European Union has the mechanisms to do this and is already doing so. It is helping to build and consolidate the security forces as effectively as possible, so that they can be of service to their citizens, to peace amongst those citizens and therefore to the law and order that all States must have.
Finally, in a State there are elections and there will be elections between now and the summer. Please allow me to stop in the summer, from then on we will see what happens. From now until the summer there are very important elections, which we must assist, which we must help to pay for and which we must continue to promote so that they may be proper and positive.
Finally, from the Palestinian point of view, what the President is doing at the moment with a view to achieving a cease-fire, with a view to achieving an agreement on dialogue amongst the Palestinians, is extraordinary. Many of us would not have thought it possible to achieve this in such a short space of time. It has been done and it must be maintained. Nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, we must be aware that the situation is very fragile. When the elections took place, days later, the first meeting between Sharon and President Abu Mazen was planned, but as a result of violence, all possibility of dialogue broke down: the situation is fragile, and while we have been talking here, there has been another attack, and we are therefore well aware that, whatever happens, we cannot allow the people of violence to hold the key to the future of the process. It would be absurd and it would be unjust. The violence must be stopped, but we cannot allow the people of violence to hold the key to moving the process forward. And I must point out that, as somebody said to me, we must ask Israel for many many things. And there is one very specific thing which they can do and must do: the withdrawal from Gaza, which at one point was intended to be a unilateral decision, can no longer be a unilateral decision. It must be an agreed decision and a decision that represents an initial step on a path that should lead to a withdrawal from the occupied territories. That is what we must call for and that is a part of the fundamental policy we Europeans must implement.
I honestly believe, after the long week I have spent in Israel as well, as I have said, talking to all of its leaders, that this is not impossible, that it is possible, and we must fulfil our responsibilities as well. I would ask you to use your imaginations, I cannot ask you all to go to Gaza, but the situation in Gaza for those who have seen it and know what I am saying, is dramatic and that disengagement from Gaza cannot be allowed to turn it into a prison. It must have the capacity to trade with the outside, it must have a port and it must have an airport, otherwise the people in Gaza will never be able to leave. And we must therefore help and we must help to ensure that there is a port and an airport and that port and that airport must undoubtedly be subject to international authority and we should be prepared to accept that responsibility if it falls to us.
We must be able to face that responsibility. I therefore believe that all these issues are fundamental and that, in order to achieve results, we must focus on them during our debates. The time has come to achieve results. We do not have an infinite amount of time before us; if we have too much time we will be frustrated, we will frustrate the Palestinians, we will frustrate the Israelis and this moment of hope which you have all recognised, this moment of pride which also exists amongst Israelis and Palestinians, will pass. There must be a community which begins to think in the same way in both Israel and Palestine, and that community must not be broken and should recover the spirits which existed before, at the time of Oslo and just before and after Oslo."@en1
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