Brussels, 03/03/2000 (Agence Europe) - During Thursday's session in Brussels, Mrs. Morgantini MEP, Italian member of the United Left, again raised the problem of Israel's breach of the Protocol of the 1995 EC-Israel Interim Agreement on rules of origin. This problem concerns products that may come from Israeli settlements on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and that may have been illicitly exported to the EU under the preferences provided for by the EC-Israel Agreement. Luisa Morgantini pointed out that, when accompanying (with the member of Partido Popular, Mr. Galeote Quecedo) Nicole Fontaine on her recent trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories, she had received "concrete and unequivocal" proof of these irregularities from a Palestinian NGO and the Israeli Peace Movement. Has the Commission carried out its duty as guardian of the Treaty and has it been able to make Israel respect Article 38 (territorial clause) of the 1995 Agreement? Is the Agreement sufficiently clear?, asked the member of the Partido della rifondazione comunista.
European Commissioner Antonio Vitorino recalled that the precise Agreement only applies to the territory of the EU and Israel, and that, in a recent written reply on the subject, his colleague responsible for external relations, Chris Patten, had said that the Occupied Territories could not be considered as being an Israeli territory. The question is very sensitive, and there are different interpretations between Israel and the EU, said Mr. Vitorino, and the European Commission's attitude in this affair is both attentive and cautious. Israel has proposed, and the Palestinians agreed (which is a "sign of confidence"), to the setting up of a tripartite EU/Israel/Palestinian working group responsible for seeking a transitional solution acceptable to all. Let us wait for this party to do its work and find an "intelligent solution", Viltorino concluded.
During the brief debate, almost all MEPs who spoke placed emphasis on the need to encourage the resumption of the peace process. As for this specific problem, German Christian-Democrat Mr. Schwaiger noted that Parliament had been fighting for ten years in favour of the Palestinians in this affair of rules of origin. Spanish Socialist Mr. Mendez del Valle, for his part, criticised President Prodi who, when questioned on this affair of the trade agreement on his recent trip to Israel, had said that he had only raised political matters with his interlocutors. The member of Democratici di sinistra, Mr. Imbeni, on the other hand, considered that the President of the Commission, as well as the President of Parliament, had "done well not to put this issue on the table on the occasion of very recent visits", and said he was satisfied with Mr. Vitorino's reply: the "severity of friends" should be an incitement to Israel to respect its undertakings, according to the Italian MEP. Mrs. Banotti, Irish member of the EPP Group, for her part, said that deposits should be demanded of the Israelis as long as clarity had not been shed on the origin of the products in question, and exclaimed: "I have seen flowers and strawberries rot in the streets of Gaza, and I have seen donkeys eat them, right under the eyes of powerless Palestinians". British Conservative Mr. Sumberg backed the European Commission's "cautious" attitude, which has to be "fair", and remarked, moreover, that determining the origin of products was often a difficult matter. French Socialist Mr. Zimeray spoke along the same lines, stressing that the European Union's position in this issue had not to be "selective" and perceived as a "prosecution" of Israel: "nowhere, in the EU/Israel Agreement, are the Israeli borders defined", he recalled, considering that "any attempt by the EU to impose its concept of territoriality" would be prejudicial.
At a press conference after the plenary, Mrs. Morgantini showed products sold in France, Belgium and the United Kingdom as being Israeli products but having come, in particular, from the Golan Heights and settlements on the West Bank (wine, "Pretzels", and bath crystals). Furthermore, Mrs. Morgantini distributed a letter signed the same day by Nabeel Sha'ath, Minister for Planning and International Cooperation of the Palestinian Authority, stating that he intended providing a "correction" to the remarks made by Commissioner Vitorino. The latter, he says, "omitted the fact that in the 24 January meeting between President Arafat and Commissioner Patten, the Palestinian side clearly communicated to Commissioner Patten that it would not entertain any discussions of matters concerning settlement products, legitimising their importation into the EC under preferences, or introducing any new arrangements that would obscure or misrepresent their origin".