Israel set to escape claims over damage to EU sites

Date: 21/03/02

By David Cronin

CHRIS Patten, the external relations commissioner, has virtually ruled out the prospect of the European Union claiming compensation from Israel for damage caused to EU-funded projects in the occupied territories.He says such a course of action would be 'horrendously complicated', even though EU foreign ministers have formally stated they reserve the right to charge Ariel Sharon's government for destruction by Israeli forces.

Commission officials estimate that Israel has caused €19 million worth of damage to EU-financed infrastructure since the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, began in autumn 2000. This includes destruction of the runway at Gaza airport,the Palestinian Authority's central bureau of statistics and laboratories helping detectives to root out Islamic extremists.Addressing the European Parliament's budget control committee this week, Patten questioned what security benefits Israel could possibly be reaping from wrecking such structures.

'While we condemn savage attacks on Israeli people without any reservation, we at the same time question whether some of the targeting of development projects [by Israeli forces] makes any conceivable sense,' he said.

'It is quite difficult to know how driving a bulldozer up and down the runway in Gaza will make it less likely for young men and women to strap bombs to themselves and murder people in Tel Aviv.'

On the question of compensation, the commissioner said that while he did not wish 'to sound like an irritated chartered accountant', taking concrete steps would be fraught with difficulty for two main reasons.First, the Commission's own rules state that once it completes a project or delivers equipment, it becomes the property of the beneficiary. It would, therefore, be up to Yasser Arafat to claim reparations.

Second, EU funding for the occupied territories is channelled not only through the Commission, but also through individual member states, each with their own legal systems.

Describing the €19 million sum 'as a very rough and ready estimate of the crudest sort', Patten said that it did not include several factors which could be 'rolled into' an assessment of both direct and indirect damage to facilities provided with Union aid. For example, the figure does not include losses caused by military blockades which often make it impossible for patients or supplies to reach the European Gaza Hospital.Italian left-wing MEP Luisa Morgantini, who visited Palestinian refugee camps last weekend, said she had witnessed damage inflicted on childcare facilities financed by Rome.

EU funding, she added, is 'essential to the thousands of people who work' in the occupied territories.Some 1,400 people - mostly civilians - have been killed during the past 18 months of Middle East violence.

External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten has virtually ruled out the prospect of the European Union claiming compensation from Israel for damage caused to EU-funded projects in the occupied territories.