Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-07-03-Speech-2-572-000"
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"en.20120703.23.2-572-000"2
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"Madam President, I myself submitted this oral question, as Chair of the Committee on International Trade and as rapporteur for this procedure for consent to an international agreement. It concerns a protocol on assessing the conformity and acceptance of industrial products between the European Union and Israel.
Two substantive issues have been raised regarding this agreement. One was raised in the Committee on International Trade regarding political consistency or congruency. The European Union condemns without qualification Israeli policy towards the occupied territories and towards the peace process, on the one hand, yet is willing to upgrade the status of EU-Israel trade relations, on the other.
The second problem – which is the one under discussion now, not the first one – was raised by the Committee on Foreign Affairs when the Committee on International Trade asked for its opinion on the issue of political consistency. The Committee on Foreign Affairs raised this issue: the agreement does not clearly specify the territorial scope of its implementation. What it literally says is that products imported from Israel covered by this protocol, in particular, pharmaceutical products, will enter the EU internal market without requiring a conformity assessment and acceptance of industrial products within the EU, since they have been certified by the competent Israeli authorities, which is the very subject of the agreement.
The issue raised is about knowing whether this can be applied to products not made in Israel’s legal territory, according to the European Union’s understanding that it does not include the occupied territories, or if it excludes all products from these territories. The problem was raised in relation to Article 9 of the protocol, which establishes the existence of authorities on the side of Israel responsible for ensuring this conformity assessment and the acceptance of products exported by Israel to the European Union. They thus benefit from this system of bilateral recognition of reciprocal procedures. Therefore, the issue raised by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which the Committee on International Trade seconded – meaning that the question is being asked by both committee chairs – comprises four or five questions. I, personally, will focus on the first two.
First, can the Commission ensure, in a legally binding way, that it will not accept, tacitly or otherwise, the territorial jurisdiction of the responsible Israeli authority mentioned in Article 9 of the Protocol including territories under Israeli administration since 1967? The second question, which is related, is can the Commission ensure that no industrial products manufactured in the settlements, in the Israeli occupied territories, in the West Bank settlements or in Eastern Jerusalem will be certified under this protocol?
A clear response to these two questions is essential because it is about knowing the territorial scope of the agreement and understanding this protocol, whose drafting and negotiation was clearly flawed, because this issue obviously must have come up. It is also obvious that the European Union cannot accept that products originating in the occupied territories might benefit from this arrangement with the Israeli authorities. Either the Commission has a unilateral interpretation that clarifies to Parliament that the protocol is applicable only to Israel’s legal territory as the EU understands it, or we have a problem which may influence the decisions of Members comprising the Committee on International Trade, which is the competent committee in this area.
We consider it in the committee’s best interests to give a clear, binding response that the EU will first ... I am concluding, Mr President ... that the Commission will ask for the necessary elements to guarantee that the competent Israeli authority does not have jurisdiction beyond legal Israeli territory and that the protocol cannot be interpreted in any way other than being limited to Israel’s legal territory."@en1
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