Brussels, 13/11/2008 (Agence Europe) - Luisa Morgantini (GUE/Italy), Vice-President of the European Parliament, considers the EU has made “the big mistake of not recognising the government democratically elected by the Palestinian population, and still more of not recognising the resulting unity government formed thanks to the effort of Palestinian prisoners belonging to all factions, and above all that of Marwan Barghouti”. She also considers that Tony Blair “has failed”. “It is necessary to remind him he should take his work seriously and implement projects”, she states in an interview published by the electronic newsletter, medafrique.info. Ms Morgantini takes the view that the EU “should seek to use its power of pressure on Israel: if it does not meet its commitments, we could use different means, beginning with a refusal to cooperate in military research or arms sales, and freezing the EU-Israel Association Agreement as foreseen in Article 2 in the event of human rights violations on the part of third countries. This would make it possible to send a powerful message to the Israeli government that there is no country or government above the law, and the same message would be sent to the United States”. Ms Morgantini also believes that the EU “should first of all beg pardon for not having stopped Israel's military occupation and for not having managed to convince that there should be the creation of two peoples and two states. It should implore pardon for all the victims - Palestinians, Israelis and Lebanese - of this unending tragedy”.
To the question “does the EU play straight with the Palestinians?”, Ms Morgantini answered: “No, I don't think so”. In her view, “Europe has double standards in its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in the search for a fair and lasting solution”. Recalling the 1980 Venice declaration and the need to create two states for two different peoples living side by side in peace and security, she states that Europe “has been neither rational nor consistent (…) despite all its words and promises, no just solution has yet been found to the Palestinian problem and for peace in the region. On the contrary, the Palestinian population has lived under occupation since 1967, which now makes over 40 years. The Oslo agreement has never been applied and their freedom of movement [Ed: i.e. that of the Palestinians] denied by hundreds of military checkpoints and by the apartheid wall”. She went on to say that, for all the hopes let down over all these past years, for all the promises not kept because of its policy of “double standards”, the EU truly and dramatically risks being considered as unreliable and untrustworthy, but also as accomplice to and responsible for the drama which endures in the region. Ms Morgantini points to the EU's “political fragility” that can be seen “each time we are not able - or that we do not want - to make Israel responsible for international law violations”. (F.B./transl.jl)