Leaders from the 10-member European Economic Community (EEC) are expected to condemn Israel at their current summit meeting here but will refrain from calling for sanctions against Israel or from issuing a new joint diplomatic initiative in the Middle East.
The 10 West European leaders, including President Francois Mitterrand of France, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain, and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany, are scheduled to start tonight their discussion on the Middle East.
The EEC has twice in the past–in Venice in June 1980 and again in Luxembourg last December — adopted joint statements of policy on the Middle East. This year, diplomatic sources say, Mitterrand has called on his West European partners to refrain from any new initiative which, the French believe, could only serve to accentuate tensions in the area and hurt the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. Mitterrand is due to report tomorrow on his recent trip to Israel, the first by a European head of state.
Meanwhile, 21 Arab states today called on the European leaders to vigorously condemn Israeli terror.” The Arab states, in a cable addressed to the 10 EEC leaders said “verbal condemnations are no longer sufficient.” The Arab states seemed to imply that they want Europe to impose some form of sanctions against Israel.
European sources told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Arabs had also exerted economic pressures on the eve of the EEC summit. The sources said that Western Europe seems determined, however, to follow France’s advice, at least until Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai is completed April 25.
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