European Union" "
“A return to political action, with the need to ensure security”: that’s how the content of the meeting of the EU’s ministers of foreign affairs in relation to the peace process in the Middle East might be summed up. The General Affairs Council, albeit in the absence of unanimity of views, believes that the current stage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not permit hasty solutions: “To think it would be possible to pass from the cease-fire to negotiations on the permanent status of Palestine would not be realistic” at this time, said the Spanish foreign minister Josep Piqué. The line indicated by the document envisages “the rapid establishment of a Palestinian state as an intermediate stage“. The European Union requires as an indispensable condition for its involvement in the peace negotiations a Palestinian undertaking to put an end to the terrorist actions and to close the channels through which the terrorists are being financed, as well as respect for the obligations assumed by Israel at the international level. If the outcome of the intermediate stage should prove positive, the road would then be opened to the Italian proposal for the holding of an international conference aimed at finally resolving the conflict.
