EU agrees to boost ties with Israel
LUXEMBOURG (AFP) — 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.
