Durban II: EU still negotiating before decision on participation

"Maxime Verhagen, Foreign Minister of Holland, told the Dutch parliament earlier this week that the "document is unacceptable." "I am aiming for a joint withdrawal of all EU ministers, unless the document is not changed. If this does not succeed, then I am not afraid to unilaterally withdraw from Durban," he said."

"EU Foreign Ministers are likely to discuss Monday in Brussels the question of whether the EU should withdraw from the upcoming UN conference on racism scheduled to take place in Geneva April 20-24.

But according to a spokeswoman for the EU Czech presidency in Prague, the parties in Geneva are still negotiating about the conference draft final conclusions.

"After that, the EU will take a decision," Zuzana Opletalova, told EJP, without giving a precise deadline.

Italy became last week the first EU country to announce its withdrawal from the Geneva conference. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said that his country would no longer participate due to "aggressive and anti-Semitic statements" in the conference's draft final document.

Maxime Verhagen, Foreign Minister of Holland, told the Dutch parliament earlier this week that the "document is unacceptable."

"I am aiming for a joint withdrawal of all EU ministers, unless the document is not changed. If this does not succeed, then I am not afraid to unilaterally withdraw from Durban," he said.

Mark Malloch-Brown, Britain’s Minister for Africa, Asia and the United Nations, told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that "A change in…direction will be required for any outcome document to gain our support."

"The UK will find unacceptable any attempt to use the Durban process to trivialize or deny the Holocaust, or to renegotiate agreements on the fight against anti-Semitism," he said.

A German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said last week that Germany intended to continue its participation in negotiations over the text of the resolution, while France appeared to be pressing for a common European decision about whether to attend.

Israel has called on all European Union countries to follow the exemple of Canada and the U.S. and boycott the conference, a follow-up to the first conference held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

The U.S. and Israel at the time walked out of the parley because of harsh anti-Israel resolutions that compared Zionism with racism."

Source: article by Yossi Lempkowicz in EJP

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