Brussels, 15/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The EU Troika will begin a three-day tour of the Middle East on Saturday, travelling to Egypt, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and the Occupied Territories. The three politicians will be the Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt; the Belgian Foreign Minister, Louis Michel; the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi; and the High Representative for CFSP, Javier Solana. The EU representative in the region, Miguel Angel Moratinos, will accompany them.
On Saturday, the Troika will be meeting the Egyptian President, Hosni Moubarak, and then the Chairman of the Palestinian Authrotiy, Yasser Arafat. On Sunday, they will meet the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, the Israeli President, Moshe Kastav, and the President of the Knesset, Avraham Burg. On Monday, the Troika (but not the High Representative Javier Solana or Louis Michel, who will be returning to Brussels for the General Affairs Council) will be meeting King Abdullah of Jordan, the President of Syria, Hafez Al-Assad, and then the Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafic Hariri and the Lebanese President, Emile Lahoud.
In accordance with the conclusions of the Ghent Summit (which called for the Middle East peace process to be relaunched without any preconditions), the Troika will try to identify ways in which the European Union can contribute to the search for peace. The US and Russian presidents had announced, on Tuesday in a press release, that they were stepping up their efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, "together with other key actors". "But one must be realistic, as signs are not positive for the moment. Attacks on civilians and the occupation of Palestinian territories continues", admitted one European diplomat. "The visit by the Troika is a link in the European strategy consisting of continuing bilateral and international contacts to ensure that, despite the situation of extreme violence that is currently reigning, communication channels are being maintained", it is specified by another European source.
There is no "new strategy" but the EU will again be insisting for immediate application of the recommendations set out in the reports by former US Senator George Mitchell on confidence measures, and by CIA Director George Tenet on security questions, in order to consolidate a ceasefire and resume negotiations. "It is clear it is not possible to wait for a complete end to violence to set the Mitchell Plan in place. The seven-day period without violence (imposed by Israel as a condition for implementing the plan) is not a good idea", commented one European diplomat.
Europeans will confirm the EU's willingness to support economic "micro-measures" in order to revitalise the economy of the Palestinian territories but "we shall also recall that the EU may find this difficult to do if Israel does not leave the Palestinian population the possibility to practice a normal economic activity", states a European source. "We are convinced that the socio-economic disaster in Palestinian territories fuels violence", said the same source. The Commission has allocated EUR 210 million to the Palestinian Authority in 2001, recalls one of its spokespersons. The economic issue should be tackled next Tuesday, during the meeting of the Association Council between the EU and Israel.