Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it goes without saying that when the subject of the security fence or wall between Israel and the Palestinian autonomous regions is broached, emotions soon run very high on the part of everyone involved. The European Parliament has on various occasions adopted opinions on this subject – on the political appropriateness of this wall, on its legality, on the new scenario it has created in terms of potential future arrangements on the part of the Israelis, on the hardship that it involves for many Palestinians, and on the illusion of security that the wall creates for Israel. We have already made our views clear on all these aspects, and I do not wish to cover the same ground again here. The issue we need to resolve today is where we stand as regards the hearing in the International Court of Justice on the Israeli wall. I would first like to thank the Irish Presidency for their observations and for clarifying what the EU's position has been, on what occasions and for what reasons. Let us look at the United Nations General Assembly resolution for which the legal basis was the 'Uniting for Peace' formula. I in fact believe that from a legal point of view this was not an appropriate legal basis, because the Security Council was indeed in a position to deal with this and in fact did so, and I therefore think that it was right for the EU to abstain in the vote on this, no doubt for legal reasons. However, the statement issued by the presidency at that time also had a political flavour. If you will permit me, I shall quote the relevant sentence in English: 'The EU believes that the proposed request for an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice will not help the efforts of the two parties to relaunch a political dialogue and is therefore inappropriate.' So the consequence was that the EU of 15 abstained. It is my belief that we should not underestimate this issue in this context. We should take political steps towards reviving talks between the Israelis and Palestinians and reactivating the roadmap, which is moribund, so that we do not completely lose sight of the consequences of this security wall and also the resolution of the main issue. I can see little point in our having a debate on legal issues here if it runs counter to the ruling of the International Court of Justice. The ruling of the International Court of Justice is that there can be no trial if a state involved in a dispute before the Court does not accept its jurisdiction. And Israel has specifically stated that it does not wish to appear before the International Court of Justice with regard to this. I therefore believe that political initiatives are far more important, and that the only way we can get the security wall removed or even, as a first step, make it easier for people to cross, is for us to really put pressure on everyone involved to assume their responsibilities and to honour the commitments which they have after all entered into I support the presidency to the extent that it is holding the line followed by the European Union up to now. I welcome the fact that the presidency intends to hold intensive talks and that we – although the European Union has unfortunately not so far really played a leading role or a truly pivotal one – will in practice be able to bring our influence to bear on everyone involved in the process, by adopting a balanced stance, a stance whereby both sides will see us as an honest broker. However, if that is not the case, and if we continue to play a merely ancillary role, I believe that the parties will not have the confidence in us that we need if we are in all honesty to play a role here. The money that we are making available to the region will not by itself win us influence. We need to speak with a single political voice and endeavour to make a contribution in that way.

Political group: PPE-DE