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EU agrees to
boost ties with Israel
EU nations on Monday agreed to strengthen relations with
Israel but set no timeframe for negotiations amid fears of upsetting Arab
states ahead of a Mediterranean summit next month.
Dimitrij Rupel, foreign minister of Slovenia, which holds
the EU's presidency, said the European Union and Israel were "elevating
our relations to a new level of more intense, more fruitful, more influential
cooperation."
And Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told a joint press
conference with Rupel: "Today we mark a new phase in the relations between
Israel and the EU."
But nobody was saying how long the process would take.
Both Livni and Rupel stressed the shared values and interests
of Israel and the EU and the importance of deeper ties for the Middle East
peace process.
The Israeli minister, talking to reporters during a break in
discussions of the EU-Israeli association council, added that the upgraded
relations would cover the "political, economic, scientific, legal,
cultural, educational and counterterrorism areas "and much more."
Upgrading EU-Israeli ties "doesn't mean that this is
against somebody else," she added.
Earlier, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner
was asked whether the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a
condition of finalising the deepening of ties. She underlined that the document
adopted by ambassadors of the 27 EU nations was "rather ambiguous".
Ferrero-Waldner recognised that some Arab nations were
critical of the EU initiative towards Israel while stressing that others
remained "open".
She said the ambiguity in the EU document had nothing to do
with the summit scheduled for July 13 in Paris to inaugurate the EU's Mediterranean
Union.
The new group is aimed at raising the profile of EU
relations with Mediterranean rim countries with a regular summit and
ministerial meetings.
It will revamp the creaking Barcelona Process, launched in
1995 as a framework for political, economic and social ties, but whose aims
have often been thwarted by confrontations between Israel and Arab countries.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has invited the Israelis
and several Arab leaders to the talks. Some diplomats have said that the swift
launch of talks on boosting relations with Israel could dissuade some of the
Arab leaders from attending.
Earlier this month Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad
urged the European Union not to upgrade its ties with Israel until the Jewish
state adhered to its obligations to promote peace.
The EU should not act "until after Israel implements
all of its commitments, especially those related to halting all settlement
activities and other violations of human rights in Palestine," Fayyad said
then.
An Israeli minister confirmed on Tuesday that a transfer of
tax revenues to the West Bank had been delayed because the Palestinian premier
had urged EU nations not to boost ties with the Jewish state.
Israel is already party to an association agreement with the
EU, which grants some non-members a high level of relations, although it is not
quite as closely tied to the bloc as European non-members like Switzerland and
Norway.
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