Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres arrived here on a 24-hour trouble-shooting mission Monday to try to improve his country’s soured relations with the European Community and its legislative body, the Strasbourg-based Parliament of Europe.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution last Friday denouncing acts of violence by the Israel Defense Force in the administered territories and Israel’s “refusal of all mediation efforts and of a fair solution to the Mideast conflict by the international community.”
Peres will be attending the semiannual meeting of the Israel-E.C. Cooperation Council. Specifically, he will try to convince the 12 E.C. foreign ministers with whom he meets Tuesday of the importance of the three economic agreements Israel and the E.C. singed last year, but which the European Parliament refused to ratify in March.
He wants to impress upon them as well that the E.C. has the responsibility to put pressure on Arab countries that refuse to make peace with Israel rather than on Israel alone.
The Israeli foreign minister made those points with his Belgian counterpart, Leo Tindemanns, at a one-hour meeting here Monday night shortly after Peres arrived.
The European Parliament resolution was passed by a slim margin of 30-22 Most of the parliament’s 518 members were absent. The resolution, which was introduced by West German Socialist Klaus Hansch, also denounced terrorist attacks by Palestinian groups or others on civilian targets in Israel.
This is not the first time the E.C. and its parliament have been sharply critical of Israel’s methods of dealing with the Arab uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The parliament’s rejection of the economic protocols on March 9 was over Israel’s failure at the time to allow Palestinians in then administered territories to export their agricultural produce directly to the European market. It was widely viewed, however, as a from of economic sanction against Israel.
The three accords, negotiated over a two-year period by Israel and the European Common Market Commission deal with Israel’s future trade relations with the E.C. and Israeli agricultural and industrial exports.
They also concern E.C. financial aid to Israel Peres hopes his visit will result in a $70 million loan on easy terms.
Diplomatic sources here predicted that Peres’ meeting with the foreign ministers and parliament members will include “tough, hard and even embarrassing encounters.”
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