Mr President, the era of peace and prosperity, to which Mr Arafat and Israeli leaders have referred to since 1993 following the Oslo Accord, is still not here. The revival of the peace process after the fall of Mr Netanyahu’s government, the election of Mr Barak and the new Accord signed in Sharm el-Sheikh undoubtedly mark a step forwards in respect to a dark past, after the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. But there are still difficulties to overcome before stable and lasting peace can be achieved and before the Palestinians can live in a Palestinian State, as sanctioned in the UN Resolutions, that I hope will be democratic and will peacefully co-exist with the Israeli State. There are a lot of on-going problems. 70% of the West Bank and Gaza territory is still occupied by the army, the status of Jerusalem has not been established, there is the question of the Israeli settlements and the confiscation of land and water, more than 2,200 political prisoners are still incarcerated and there is the issue of the Palestinian refugees from the first exodus in 1948 and 1967 who amount to around four million. Without a positive response to these problems, peace will always be at risk. The European Union and, in particular, the European Parliament have always expressed their unconditional support for the attempts to help the Middle East peace process and to assist the Middle East. In the Resolution of March 1999 on the peace process and future aid for the Middle East, the European Parliament stressed with good reason that if the Wye Plantation Accords are confirmed – as they have been – the main problems must still be resolved, including in particular the status of the refugees. The Commission voted for the need for a steady and rigorous commitment to the refugees and accepted the tenth EC-UNRWA Convention which refers to 1999-2001. This has been submitted to the European Parliament and represents an important contribution. The proposed Convention, like the other nine signed after 1972, sets the EC’s contribution to the budget of the normal programmes of the Agency for the next three years, 1999 – 2001, and provides for annual talks on the EC’s contribution to the food aid budget. Naturally, the amount of food aid will be the subject of separate talks. UNRWA is asking for an overall contribution of EUR 120.82 million for the period up to 2001. Part of this contribution will be used for UNRWA’s educational programmes. Within the health programme, the majority will go towards the education programme. UNRWA’s regular programme aims to help 3,500,000 Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And as I said before, it provides aid to essential social sectors. In order to take into account the development of the political situation in the region, Article 6 of the Convention lays down that, at the end of 2000, developments regarding refugees will be re-examined and possible UNRWA programmes concerning the Palestinian authorities gaining more power over their own affairs will also be evaluated. However, since the Palestinian authorities only control their own territory in the West Bank and Gaza, we must pay careful attention to UNRWA’s actions regarding the refugees who are still in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan and in all the countries where Palestinian refugees can be found. In these circumstances, I would like to emphasise once again that the refugee question is not only still unresolved but is now becoming worse, as I learnt from my recent visit to the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, from the various UNRWA reports and also from our colleague, Mr Menéndez del Valle, the European Union’s representative for humanitarian aid in Jordan. However, it is essential for this EC-UNRWA Convention to be adopted and implemented as soon as possible. This is particularly important, especially in view of the current crisis in which we are discussing UNRWA’s budget. Austerity measures have been introduced which suppress various appropriations for teachers, hospitals and medical equipment which has provoked, amongst other things, strong protests in the Palestinian refugee camps. One last matter – while underlining the need to continue providing humanitarian aid through UNRWA, I think that the European Parliament is particularly interested in finding a fair and balanced political solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. This solution must be in accordance with UN Resolution 194. In this respect, I think that the greatest efforts must be made to invite the authorities concerned in the region, especially the Israeli and Palestinian authorities, to contribute to this solution. Just two more points: the Committee on Budgetary Control has proposed two amendments on greater transparency, which we subscribe to, and finally, there is a legal question of the way in which our vote is requested by the Commission, and this is something which we will have to examine.

Political group: GUE-NGL