Riva del Garda, 08/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - Foreign ministers reached agreement at their informal "Gymnich" type meeting in Riva del Garda in Italy on Saturday to add Hamas' political wing to the European list of terror organisations. The President of the Council, Franco Frattini, commented after the meeting that there had been board political consensus about Hamas having committed acts that had helped destroy the equilibrium of the roadmap.
The intergovernmental clearing house that met in Brussels on Monday afternoon was expected to set out the details of the decision, which will be formally endorsed at an upcoming Council meeting. The clearing house will stipulate whether the Palestinian organisation will be added to the list itself along with charitable groups funding it and its leaders. To date, only Hamas' armed wing, Hamss-Izz al-Din al-Qassem was on the European list of terror organisations whose members' assets are frozen in the EU. The EU may decide to follow in the footsteps of the United States which decided at the end of August to freeze the assets of six leading Hamas members and five charities connected with the organisation, four of which have bases in Europe (see list in Europe of 28 August, p.3).
British foreign minister Jack Straw welcomed the full agreement. Rejecting the idea of distinguishing between Hamas' political and armed wings, he said they were dealing with one and the same organisation which had pathetically claimed responsibility for the terrible suicide attack in Jerusalem on 19 August that killed so many people, including innocent women and children.
France and Belgium were more reticent at first but finally agreed with the others. French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin told reporters that the Thessalonica Summit had called on Hamas to respect the ceasefire. After the 19 August suicide attack, we wanted to spell out all the consequences, he said, wanting the message to Hamas to be understood as a sign of the EU's determination to stand firm against terror.
Dominique de Villepin insisted, however, that in return Israel made firm commitments. Israel, the United States, the UK and the Netherlands had been applying pressure for Hamas to be added to the blacklist. De Villepin said they wanted to forcefully demand that Israel fully pledge to the implementation of the roadmap with concrete gestures like stopping the building of settlements and stopping building the wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories following a route that, he said, prejudged political decisions. The French foreign minister said there was no information to date that the Comité de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens (CBSP), based in France, was connected with terrorism.
Various foreign ministers, including Spanish minister Ana de Palacio, said the EU should foresee the impact the freezing of Hamas' assets might have on the organisation's welfare activities. The Commission pointed out that it does not have sufficient funding at its disposal to increase aid to Palestinian areas. Irish foreign minister Brian Cowen told Irish journalists on Friday that the EU's decision ran the risk of strengthening support for Hamas among the population in the Palestinian territories.