Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-30-Speech-3-069"
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"en.20080130.17.3-069"2
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"Mr President, I think that, when we were in Annapolis, there was a moment of hope. I always spoke of cautious optimism, knowing how difficult it would be to launch the bilateral negotiations between Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas, and then we had what I would call a very successful pledging conference in Paris, where we saw so much support that we thought there was now real new momentum. But at the same time we always knew that this new momentum could derail at any moment. I think the situation in the Gaza and the large amount of violence that we have seen in January is one of those very difficult situations, among many other things – including the rocket and mortar attacks that have injured the Israeli civilian population – that could make the whole process derail. Of course, we understand the obligation of the State of Israel to defend its citizens. The Israeli military reaction has caused many deaths and injuries amongst the Gaza Palestinians. We have always said that civilian enclosure measures will not be feasible and have always spoken out for freedom of access and movement. These have taken a heavy toll on the Gaza civilian population. So it is no wonder that things went excessively far when people broke through the various fences and walls between Egypt and Gaza.
The question now – and I completely support Javier Solana in this – is: what can we do in order to really make a difference again? We had the EU BAM for Rafah there for a long time, but unfortunately in recent months they have not been able to do anything, so perhaps there is a chance for us Europeans to take this up again and to try to reach some sort of solution. I think it is good that Javier Solana is going to Egypt to start asking what we can do and perhaps to bring all the different parties together, which is very complicated. But I think it is also good to see that Salem Fayed has for some time been prepared to bring in the Palestinian Authority in order to control the borders, because this is also important. In the end, it is their own responsibility. In order to make that possible, I think that the European Union might again be a facilitating factor. Maybe we will not even be mediators there but facilitators. We had the first follow-up meeting in Paris very recently where Bernard Kouchner, the Norwegian Foreign Minister and also Tony Blair met. I am also one of the co-chairs of this Conference. We tried to see what could be done on the ground in order to make the situation move forward, not to have only negative experiences. We all decided to go for the so-called quick start projects – on security infrastructure, on the one hand, and on the other hand, on schools in particular, because this is an area where everybody can see, feel and maybe even smell that there is hope, that we want to instil hope, and that freedom of access and movement is indeed one of the necessary conditions, because otherwise economic development will not be able to take off. Therefore, we are in full support of this and are now trying to follow up this strategy."@en1
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