Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-10-13-Speech-3-058"
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Mr President, before discussing the subject now on the agenda, and since this is the first time I have appeared before this Parliament which was elected before the summer, I would like to repeat what I said five years ago – on the first occasion I appeared in Parliament: that I will assist and cooperate with this House in every way I can in relation to the issues that fall within my competence. I would also like to wish all of you every success, and I hope that through the work of everybody, of all the institutions working together, we can realise the dream we all share: a better Europe at the service of the citizens and also a better Europe at the service of the world.
With regard to the economic element, Mr President, I believe that our good friend the Minister for Finance is doing an admirable job. Everybody knows this. In the realm of security, however, there remains much to be done, and it is the responsibility of President Arafat to delegate real powers to his Prime Minister in relation to security; so that he can act and actually does act by means of his Interior Minister. Until this happens, it will be more difficult to combat terrorism, to control the situation in terms of terrorism, peace and order in the occupied territories.
I would also like to say that it is very important that there be a clear interlocutor on the Palestinian side. Israel keeps saying day after day that it cannot find an interlocutor with whom it can discuss the peace process. This may become an excuse for those people who do not want to make progress, and the Palestinians should be capable of organising their own political life in such a way that that excuse cannot be used by those who do not want the peace process to move forward. I would, therefore, like once again to appeal on behalf of the European Union – just as my personal delegate, Mr Marc Otte, is currently doing in Palestine – for a Palestinian Authority capable of carrying out its responsibilities in terms of internal reforms.
It is not just in Palestine, however, that a situation of this nature is arising. I would like to point out that Israel is also currently experiencing a degree of political instability; this may also have repercussions for some of the measures being taken at the moment. The negative vote two days ago in the Knesset raises a political problem for Prime Minister Sharon with regard to the decisions to be taken on the plan to withdraw from Gaza: the essential vote on funding, on the process of disengagement from Gaza, I believe, is also creating difficulties within Israeli political society. Over the coming weeks, therefore, it is very likely that we will see new political realignments in Israel, which may even lead to the formation of a new coalition government. In any event, however, it is also very probable that the elections scheduled for 2006 may have to be brought forward to 2005 for the reasons I have just explained. Anyway, as far as we are concerned the important thing is that the peace process does not move any slower than it is at the moment.
Ladies and gentlemen, the road map talked of a peace process that should lead to two States by the end of 2005. The most we will have in 2005 is the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, nothing more. And that is a great failure on all our parts and very specifically on the part of Israel and Palestine and on the part of the Quartet and the international community.
I would also like to say to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the recent statements made by certain Israeli politicians are not acceptable to the European Union. The nerve of these statements is completely unacceptable, to us at least. To say these things about the meaning of disengagement from Gaza, the meaning of a complete and utter rejection of the road map, which the Israeli Government has endorsed, seems to me to be something we must condemn in the clearest possible terms. We cannot accept that way of working in politics. That kind of statement leads to a lack of trust, not only amongst us, but throughout the Arab world, in the neighbouring countries, amongst the Palestinians themselves and amongst a large section of Israeli society, and we cannot go on like that. To say one thing and then say the opposite in the newspapers is not an honest way to behave in politics. And it is not just any person who is saying it, but a person of weight, a significant and important person, one of the closest people to the Prime Minister of Israel.
Having said that, the question we are all asking is: what should we do? What can we do from a European point of view? Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, the European Union has a clear direction, set out in the road map, which is also the result of the efforts of the Europeans, the Americans, the United Nations and the Russian Federation. We shall defend it from the beginning to the end and we will not be in agreement with anybody who does not defend it from the beginning to the end. We do, and, therefore, anything we are able or wish to contribute at this point, we will contribute within the framework of that road map. What could we do to speed up this process in the short and medium term? I believe that in the short term we should work on four areas, with a view to ratifying them and implementing them at the next Council of Ministers in March, and certainly at the March European Council.
The first is security. The European Union has the will and has a plan and an approach to help the Palestinian Authority to improve its situation in terms of policing; so that it can carry out its duties in a serious and rigorous manner, in accordance with law and order, and combating terrorism. We are prepared to do so. We have a plan for doing so, we have the people to do it and we have the will to do it.
Secondly, reforms. The European Union is going to help the Palestinian Authority in every way it can to ensure that the process of reform which has begun is carried through to its conclusion. The leaders of the Palestinian Authority have our absolute assurance that, if they want to progress towards reform, we will always stand by them.
Thirdly, actions of an economic nature. Commissioner Patten will talk about this in more detail, but, in any event, you must be aware that we are prepared to continue helping to ensure that, from an economic point of view, this peace process does not have to suffer from a lack of resources from the European Union. We must also say clearly, however, that the European citizens, who pay taxes in Europe, cannot be paying out money permanently if the operations being funded do not lead to the desired objective, which is peace. And I would like to point out that, if the process of disengagement from Gaza is aimed solely and exclusively at Gaza, the citizens and leaders of Israel must be in no doubt that they cannot count on the European Union's money. The Gaza process must be part of a longer process, a process that truly leads to two States, which is the fundamental objective of the road map.
Fourthly, and finally, I believe we must work seriously on the electoral process. We must help to establish an electoral process in the Territories which the Palestinians can lead; to establish an electoral commission which is reliable and which has the trust of the people, so that the electoral process can create a leadership – the leadership the Palestinian citizens want – which can lead that country towards its ultimate dream, a dream many of us share, the dream of two States.
I regret, Mr President, that my first appearance before the honourable Members relates to an issue that has caused so much emotion, so much frustration and so much passion over recent years. The issue of the Middle East has a place in the hearts of all the citizens of Europe and we feel the suffering of the peoples of that region that is so close to us as if it were our own.
I have said this in relation to the short term, Mr President. Can we continue with just a gradual, step-by-step method, or has the time come to do more? Or has the time come to take a greater leap, to play a much more courageous role, if that is possible, but one which leads much more quickly to a definitive solution? We believe it has, that the step-by-step approach, the small step by small step approach, is surely about to come to an end, and that, within the context of the road map, progress can be made, or made more quickly, if the political will is there. We have that will and, once the elections have taken place in the United States of America, we will try to continue working with them, with our Russian friends and with our friends in the United Nations, to see whether it is possible to speed up the road map, so that this slowness which leads to suffering and frustration – and nothing positive for the Palestinians, nor for the Israelis, nor for the region, nor for us or our societies – comes to an end and much quicker progress genuinely begins and leads us to what we all dream of, which is – as I have said before – the two States.
We have talked a lot about the two States, but we have never defined the form the Palestinian State should take, what borders it should have. All of these issues remain open and have not been closed. I would like to say once again that, from the European Union’s point of view, some of the elements of the final debate on these parameters are clear to us. We believe the borders of this Palestinian State must be the 1967 borders. We state this very clearly, we said it on Monday at the meeting of Foreign Affairs Ministers, we have said it through the European Council and we are repeating it today formally in this House. And, on the basis of those 1967 borders, the two parties must negotiate any exchanges of territory they consider necessary. But that must be the basis for the negotiation and progress must be made on that basis – and I hope we can do so before the end of the year – and we must find a way to make more direct and rapid progress towards defining the final parameters, which can make this dream shared by so many people a reality and lead to a political process that contradicts some of the statements made over recent days by responsible and respectable people on behalf of Israel.
Having spoken, as we have in recent days, to the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, I would like to point out that they all have the same feeling that, without knowing exactly where we are going, nor what the borders of the new Palestinian State are, nor when that leap forward is going to happen, the stability of their own countries is to a certain degree in jeopardy. Jordan is essentially a country whose borders are yet to be defined, which does yet know who its neighbour is going to be and which wants to know, and has the right to know, what the borders of its new neighbour, the Palestinian State, are going to be.
Mr President, the situation – as I have said – is sad and frustrating for those who have dedicated so many hours of their lives to trying to find a path to peace. It is important that a solution is found, because the whole of the Middle East – not just the peace process, but the whole of the Middle East – has been plunged into a profound crisis and we all want to get out of it. But we will probably have to do this by means of a faster and more effective peace process, with more involvement by the international community and by the fundamental players, which are Israel and Palestine.
Mr President, I have little more to say to you this afternoon, but I would like to say from the bottom of my heart that we will continue working between now and the next Council of Ministers to see whether we can implement a small plan which, within the context of the road map, can speed up the process in the way I have described to this House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with the sadness, frustration, and at the same time emotion, that all these issues bring to anybody who discusses them – including all of you – I would say to you once again that we shall continue to work day and night to achieve that objective.
In Luxembourg last Monday, the 11th, the Council of Ministers of the European Union analysed this issue in great depth – as the honourable Members are aware – and approved a Resolution that I am not going to repeat, because I hope, and I am sure, that all of you have read it. I would like, however, in the short speaking time the Presidency is allowing me, to deal with three very clear and specific points so that we can focus the debate on them, if the honourable Members so wish.
The first point is our view of the recent events that have taken place in that region; the second is to analyse the political situation both in Palestine and in Israel; and thirdly, how the European Union sees the current situation and how, amongst all of us, we might find a way to speed up the peace process and thereby put an end to this spiral of violence we are caught up in.
With regard to the first point, that of recent events, I would like to go back, Mr President, to the last meeting of the Quartet in New York on 22 September. I would like to emphasise four points from the document that emerged from that meeting, because some of them are important to the subsequent debate. Some of these points seemed perhaps to have been forgotten or to have been put to sleep, but fortunately, thanks to that meeting of the Quartet on 22 September, they seem to have recovered their place in people’s hearts. Of those four points, I will comment on the following: the need for reforms within the Palestinian Authority – we all agree on this – and also our complete and utter condemnation of terrorism. But that resolution also talks of the need to stop the settlements, of the fact that the members of the Quartet should take note of the Decision of the International Criminal Court on the wall and that we members of the Quartet want the process of withdrawal from Gaza, which has been put into motion in Israel, to be part of broader political process and that it should genuinely lead to a resolution of the problem in its entirety.
Since then, 22 September, the situation on the ground in Gaza has unfortunately deteriorated. What we have seen in recent days and weeks around Gaza has made us all suffer and, above all, has made us all reflect on what point there is to certain actions on the ground. It is true that at one point the violence began when Palestinian terrorists launched Qassam rockets in the north of the Gaza Strip, but it is also the case that Israel’s response has not been what we European democrats would have expected. It has been a response which we believe goes beyond what could be described as proportional: 119 deaths, a third of them of under-18s, amongst Palestinians; five deaths amongst Israelis, including two children. It is not possible to go on living in this spiral of violence, in which people die senselessly, and continue to die senselessly, and this whole process of violence does nothing to take the peace process forward a single millimetre.
How can we stop it? How can we stop this violence from continuing? We in the European Union have done everything possible over these weeks – in constant contact with the authorities of Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Jordan – to see whether it is possible to bring about a comprehensive peace, a comprehensive ceasefire. It has been impossible. We have not achieved it, and we have not even managed to bring about any kind of pause in order to deal with humanitarian issues. We therefore feel frustration, emotion and sadness as a result of the events of recent days.
The situation was complicated even further by the terrorist attack on Thursday night in Taba, which was also dreadful. It was dreadful because of its senselessness, because of the people who died, Israelis taking their holidays, Egyptians looking after hotels, some European citizens who were there on holiday. I would, therefore, like to express my total condemnation of this attack which made sense to the terrorists: to try to destabilise a country, Egypt, which is cooperating in the peace process in an admirable way. I would, therefore, once again appeal to everybody who can hear us via this European Parliament for common sense, peace, an end to the violence, so that Israel’s process of withdrawal from Gaza can go ahead in peace and tranquillity, with no more victims on any side.
The second point I wanted to comment on is the situation in Palestine: you know it very well; you are well aware of the European Union’s position. Palestine now needs a government, a Palestinian Authority with the capacity to act as such, as a government. We have asked, and we will do everything to ensure, that the rules which have been more or less agreed by President Arafat be signed by him, that he turn them into reality through a Prime Minister with real powers to operate in relation to what are fundamentally the elements defining a State: security, on the one hand, and the economy on the other."@en1
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