Brussels, 05/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Friday the European Liberal Democrats endorsed a declaration put forward by their President, Werner Hoyer, calling on the UN Security Council to initiate a Conference on Security and Cooperation in the Middle East (CSCME) along the lines of the CSCE that opened the door to closer ties between East and West Europe in the 70s. Dutch Liberal Wim Van Ekkelen (former defence minister and former WEU Secretary General) raised objections - President Bush "is vehemently opposed to such a conference" and Europe had unsuccessfully attempted to introduce confidence measures for the Middle East by launching the Barcelona Process - but his remarks were not acted upon. Mr Hoyer responded that the Barcelona Process had been "overburdened" since the start, and it had been abundantly clear since the first EuroMed ministerial conference in Barcelona (that Barak attended as Israeli foreign minister, he pointed out) that this was not the forum where one could expect to find a solution to the Middle East crisis. The former German foreign secretary noted that the EU would have a big role to play in a CSCME, in terms of the baskets of confidence or economic and social measures and probably also in terms of the range of security measures.
The text that was endorsed had deliberately been left neutral - I would have preferred, said Mr Hoyer, to use "tougher" language, but in the current situation, I think it would be counterproductive.