Brussels, 28/08/2001 (Agence Europe) - Speaking before the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel retraced the latest events in the Middle East recalling the different interventions by the Council and the High Representative for Foreign Policy, Javier Solana, since the beginning of the Belgian Presidency. He recalled that the European Union has relentlessly condemned Palestinian terrorist action and the Israeli strategy of targeted murder. In this connection, a communiqué from the Belgian Foreign Ministry described, on Monday, the deliberate assassination of the FPLP leader, About Ali Moustapha, as serious. The communiqué states that the EU Presidency calls on the parties involved to put an end to the infernal cycle of violence and reprisals and to thus allow the recommendations of the Mitchell Report to be implemented without delay, in order to rekindle the peace process. The European Union should put pressure on to rekindle the peace process, Mr Michel told MEPs, stressing that it cannot act alone given that Israel challenges its objectiveness. He pointed out that he will do what is necessary to convene a meeting between the European Union, the United States and Russia with a view to putting greater pressure on to bring about an end to the violence and to relaunch dialogue.
"Alone, we can do nothing", Mr Michel told MEPs who, after the fashion of German Social Democrat Janis Sakellariou, deplored the EU's lack of influence. He went on to recall that "Israel totally disqualifies the EU". Called on by French Socialist Sami Naïr, who spoke of the possibility of suspending the association agreement in order to step up pressure, Mr Michel said: "I am not sure this is the most subtle way of going about things (…) It would be taking sides (…) and, within the Fifteen, there is a tiny minority of people who believe the EU should take sides". Mr Michel, however, welcomed the proposal put forward by the German Green member elected in France, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who recommended stepping up action to bring the different groups of the civil society closer together and sending another fifty or so observers to the territories and in Israel. Recalling that "people to people" operations were regularly organised to resume dialogue between the two parties, he said, without wanting to be pessimistic, that "the two public opinions are blocked" and that "it will take much longer than diplomats or parliaments imagine". To Dutch Christian-Democrat Arie Oostlander who asked him why he wanted to involve Russia, Mr. Michel replied: "I really believe that we must get Russia involved in all major conflicts (….) Russia has a certain aptitude for that and would like to be recognised as a global actor (…) It would be a mistake not to get Russia positively involved." "The Mitchell Report is not dead. It is even the only tangible element on which we have a chance of rekindling the process," explained Mr. Michel, answering the Spanish member of the EPP, Gerardo Galeote who had just claimed the opposite. "The Mitchell Report is more topical than ever. It can and must still work. It has been the subject of agreement. It is all we have. It would be a mistake to bury it". To Swedish Green Per Gahrton, who said that the EU should back Palestine like the United States backed Israel so as to establish a balance and to other MEPs who deplored the lack of EU influence in the region, Mr. Michel replied: "The EU is not one and indivisible on the subject. I am one voice, not even a voice of synthesis, the voice of the smallest common denominator (…) Even admitting that taking sides is the right strategy, we do not even have the means for this right strategy". Answering German Christian-Democrat Armin Laschet who had returned to the financing by the EU of Palestinian school books containing texts of an anti-semitic nature, Mr. Michel said that he had had on the contrary a problem of this type in the framework of Belgian cooperation and that he had had to block the issue. A European Commission representative stipulated that the Community executive funded programmes in the education sector but that these essentially related to infrastructures and positions of teachers. The Commission has supplied no aid for school books. He went on to indicate that the first Palestinian books were very recent and were drawn up with the help of Unesco. They would have no antisemitic contents, contrary to certain works - older - of Jordanian and Egyptian origin that are also used in certain Palestinian schools.