EU official urges closer ties with Israel

BRUSSELS (WJC)—European Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen of Germany has said that the EU should upgrade its political and economic relations with Israel – frozen after the Gaza war – again and grant Israel the same relationship status with Europe as Norway. “We should give Israel a long-term and clear credible European perspective,” Verheugen told a conference in Brussels marking 50 years of relations between Europe and Israel. While not an EU member state, Norway participates in the European Economic Area and in many of the EU’s programs, institutions and activities.

“Israel is for the EU not a country like the others. There is no other country in the world with whom we have such visible and invisible links. Israel is part of our own history, our own culture and our own life,” Verheugen said. We cannot deliver hard security to Israel but we can strengthen our economic and political relations”, Verheugen said. At the event, organized by the Mission of Israel to the EU and Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Israel’s ambassador to the EU, Ran Curiel, said EU-Israel relations were based on a long shared history of the Jewish people and Europe “with its lights and shadows”.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the 27 EU member states have nominated Belgium’s Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as the first-ever permanent President of the European Union. The current British trade commissioner for trade, Catherine Ashton, will become the new EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and a vice-president of the European Commission. The changes in the EU institutions were brought about by the Lisbon Treaty, which aims at strengthening the union’s role in international affairs..

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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress