Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-22-Speech-2-264"
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"en.20070522.25.2-264"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, honourable Members, I ask your understanding for the fact that I am able, at the moment, to make only a few brief comments, as I have a meeting with your Committee on Foreign Affairs at 6.00 p.m., when I will be reviewing and evaluating the last meeting of the General Affairs and Foreign Relations Council.
While I can understand all the things you have said, not least that which has been said on the basis of your own travels and discussions, I would ask you also to take note of the fact that it was the European Union, notably the previous and current presidencies, that actually did something about reviving the Middle East Quartet and getting some sort of process in motion, without which process the Saudi Arabian initiative would not have happened, and so I would ask you to take a nuanced view and bear in mind that certain things cannot be attributed to the immobility of certain funds. This is, after all, an intra-Palestinian conflict. We have of course – as I made clear in the statement on behalf of the presidency – spelled out in our talks with Israel that the funds rightly due to the Palestinians, in the shape of customs duties and taxes, must be returned to them if various infrastructure measures are to be guaranteed. The Commissioner has, on repeated occasions, and not least to the Council, commented on how the European Union has been providing support over recent months. The public may occasionally have got the impression that we are paying too little or nothing at all, but the opposite is in fact the case, for the European Union has, and during a very critical period, transferred more funds than it had done under other conditions previously.
To Mr Davis, I would like to say that we do not want the Palestinians, on the grounds of their expecting everything, to have to be seen as some sort of saints, but one thing that did become clear from the Mecca conference when attempts were being made to put together a government of national unity, was that the conditions on which the Middle East quartet has always insisted must be met, those being the right of Israel to exist, the renunciation of violence and also the discharge of the obligations entered into by the previous government. Certain things are moving, but there is as yet no clarity as to whether the government is committed to those things. There is absolutely no reason for us to put up some sort of wall; the government of national unity could well take this step, and the conditions could be established. We are not, after all, treating this as a marginal issue; every time it meets, the Council considers how progress can be made. As I have already said, the presidency is trying to arrange, in the immediate future, a meeting of the Middle East quartet, since we know just how much depends on that. The High Representative, who is currently in Beirut, many kilometres to the north, knows that this is not just about Palestine and Israel, but also about the issue of Lebanon’s security and its right to self-determination.
I would like to urge that we should go beyond just talking and try to get some initiatives off the ground to the end not only that there may be a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians, but also that financial aid be given and that we may – as I have just again looked up – ask Israel to facilitate freedom of movement for the Palestinians, so that they may no longer be penned in in the way that they currently are, in a situation with which nobody can be satisfied. I crave the House’s indulgence, but I really must now leave your debate."@en1
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