Posted on 05/15/2012 11:06:01 AM PDT by Olog-hai
EU foreign ministers have "warned" Israel that they will take a tougher approach to exports originating in illegal settlements on Palestinian land.
The ministers in a statement on Monday (14 May) detailing Israel's long-term campaign to expropriate Palestinian farmers in the fertile West Bank said: "The EU and its member states reaffirm their commitment to fully and effectively implement existing EU legislation and the bilateral arrangements applicable to settlement products."
Under current EU law, settlement products are excluded from preferential import tariffs granted in the 12-year-old EU-Israel association agreement.
Israel is obliged to indicate the originating postcode of each shipment, while member states' customs authorities cross-check the information against a list of settlement postcodes to see which tariffs apply.
According to Human Rights Watch's Jerusalem-based analyst Bill Van Esveld, Israeli authorities get around the rules by coding settlement products under the firms' corporate headquarters in Israel proper or by bundling them together with Israel-proper-origin goods. Meanwhile, the lack of clear product-origin labels makes it hard for European consumers to choose whether or not to buy the items. …
According to commission figures, the EU is Israel's number two import destination after the US, buying some €11.6 billion worth of Israeli goods each year. The statistics do not give a breakdown in terms of settler goods.
An EU diplomat told this website that the ministers' statement on imports "should be seen as a warning to Israel." …
(Excerpt) Read more at euobserver.com ...
The diplomats and other assorted eurocrats really have a very, very odd view of their serfs compatriots.
Yeah, maybe we should make 'em put yellow six pointed stars on the products, and maybe on the Jewish shopkeepers windows, too, in the EU.
That'd make it easier.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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The EU still has money to buy things?
The wines from the Golan Heights are world class fantastic wines. Yum!
Just Euros. No worry.
No problem. I can’t afford them. If I could, I’d boycott them.
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