Brussels, 13/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - The EP Delegation to Relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council has invited Palestinian MPs to visit the European Parliament. The meeting will be part of the joint ordinary sessions, but no meeting of this type has taken place since Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections, due to the EU ban on granting visas to its members. The President of the EP Delegation, Adamos Adamou (GUE/NGL, Cyprus), confirmed on Tuesday that the Council of the EU had given its blessing to this, in the form of a letter which does not give a formal agreement, but which does not ban each Member State in question from granting a visa. This lack of negative response has been taken by Mr Adamou and several other MEPs to mean that the EU is softening its stance towards Hamas, further to the announcement that a national union government was being set up (he EUROPE 9263).
It is also been announced that a decision was taken on Wednesday to send an information mission of the European Parliament to Palestine, Israel and Lebanon, the details for which have not yet been published (see EUROPE 9262 on the mission of the Euromed Parliamentary Assembly). Furthermore, President Borrell is to visit Beirut just before the weekend, to meet the prime minister and foreign affairs minister, but not the President of the Lebanese Parliament, who is away.