EN - Recognition of Palestine #statehood - statement by Federica Mogherini 26.11: Mr President, first of all, let me say how much I appreciate the fact of being here in this capacity for the first time in my mandate, in this first three weeks or so, and maybe to reassure you and all this Parliament of the fact that maybe we can go back to the way the Treaties call me: High Representative/Vice-President. I assure you that I will be Vice-President of the Commission, so there is no need to switch the order. I give you a political reassurance on that, but I think it is good if we all stick to the Treaties in content and in form. First of all, I would like to thank you for this timely debate. I think it is a crucial debate coming at a crucial time. I have just visited, in my first week in office, Israel and Palestine, including Gaza, Jerusalem and the West Bank, and I can report back to you, as I did to the Foreign Affairs Council, that there is a sense of urgency in the region, on both sides – very different on one side compared to the other side, but on both sides there is a very tense situation where the lack of a political perspective is, at one and the same time, the consequence and the result and the cause of violence that risks returning. We see that in these weeks, with terrorist attacks on one side and decisions on the other side that risk endangering the perspective of a two-state solution. This sense of urgency is becoming greater and greater in the absence of a political perspective. In the past months we experienced first the suspension of the talks last spring, then the conflict in Gaza. Luckily, and thanks to a good political initiative by some actors in the region and internationally – starting with Egypt – a ceasefire was reached at the end of August followed by a donors’ conference not many weeks ago, once again in Cairo. But none of this is reopening the path to a political perspective, to direct talks or to steps that can bring back hope in the fact that what we call the ‘two-state solution’ can become a reality in the near future. We have some open points. On one side we have the dramatic open point of Gaza, where I saw a desperate situation, where I saw that the Palestinian Authority has more than difficulties in doing what we all hope it could do: start to rule Gaza, starting with the security side and control of the crossings. And on the other side we have decisions like the one on the settlements, which is actually moving in an opposite direction, rather than the one indicated by the agreed negotiations. In this framework, I think this debate today about the role that the European Union can play in this process is crucial. That is why I decided to go in my first week in office, because we are the first trade partner for Israel and we are the first donor for the Palestinian Authority. We can be the first political player in the region to facilitate a dialogue, which has to be a direct dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but which maybe, for the first time really, has the chance of becoming regional. I saw during my visit – and I have shared this with the Member States of the European Union too – the fact that maybe we have for the first time such a dramatic threat and challenge in the region, in the Middle East– namely Daesh – that poses the actors in the region with a different set of priorities. I saw an awareness both in Israel and in Palestine that the order of priorities is changing, not only in the region but also in Europe, and also on the other side of the Atlantic, also for the international community, and that we have a clear possibility there of uniting different actors which now share the same concern for the security and stability of the region. We have threats in the regional framework today, but maybe we also have an opportunity coming out of these threats. On the other side, the vacuum that is there and which risks being even more relevant, especially in Gaza, given the regional framework, could lead to even more dangerous outcomes. The situation in Gaza will either get better on the ground or there is a risk that it will open the way for a more worrying situation, in terms of who controls what in that territory and who networks with whom in the region. (...) (Federica Mogherini continues, read the end of her speech here: goo.gl/nnTlyJ ) © Frédérick Moulin 2014 - EU2014 - All rights reserved.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 22:00:50 +0000
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