Fourth meeting of the Association Council EU-Israel

1. The EU welcomes this fourth meeting of the Association Council with Israel. The Association Agreement offers the framework for strengthening bilateral ties and the EU is committed to continuously deploying efforts to this effect. This session follows the last meeting of the Association Committee on 9 July 2003 in Brussels, which enabled us to make good progress in several areas of co-operation.

The meeting was chaired by Mr. Franco FRATTINI, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Italian Republic and President of the Council. Mr. Silvan SHALOM, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Israel, led the Israeli Delegation. Mr. Javier SOLANA, Secretary General and High Representative for the CFSP, The European Commission was represented by Mr. Christopher PATTEN, Member.

2. The Association Agreement provides us also with an institutionalised framework to conduct a regular political dialogue at various levels on all issues of common interest, the aim of which is to develop better mutual understanding, increasing convergence of positions on international issues, opening the way to new forms of co-operation with a view to achieving common goals, in particular peace, security and democracy. The EU attaches great importance to conducting and maintaining a regular political dialogue with Israel at all levels. Consequently, the Association Committee at its last meeting devoted time to discussing a number of political issues, among which were the Middle East Peace Process, Iran, Iraq, terrorism, nonproliferation, the Wider Europe initiative and the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.

The EU is ready to consider proposals submitted by Israel in the margins of the last Association Committee to deepen and strengthen the dialogue; in this context the ban imposed by Israel on official contacts with EU representatives who meet with the President of the Palestinian Authority is not in line with the spirit of these proposals. The EU stresses the importance of open and unhindered channels of communication for all EU interlocutors, including EU Special Representative, Ambassador Marc Otte. The EU urges the Israeli side to reconsider its position in view of the negative impact it might have for the future dialogue.

3. Our bilateral relations are based on shared respect for human rights and democratic principles, an essential element of our association agreement as set out in Article 2. The EU seeks to uphold the universality, interdependence and indivisibility of all human rights. The promotion and protection of human rights including rights of persons belonging to minorities as well as fundamental freedoms constitute a major objective of the EU's external relations. In this context, the EU recalls that the Commission has presented to the Council and the European Parliament a Communication on "Reinvigorating EU actions on Human Rights and democratisation with Mediterranean partners" which makes a certain number of concrete recommendations. The Communication, which has also been presented to the Mediterranean partners at the Mid-term Ministerial Conference in Crete in May, is currently being examined by the Council bodies.

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