I have been chairing the European Parliament (EP) Delegation with Israel since September 2014. The decision to have an Italian President was taken by the Italian EPP Delegation to the European Parliament in June of that year in the town of Albufeira, Portugal. It has been a great decision and, at the same time, a challenging and very rewarding one.
I could continue this article expressing the many challenges Israel is facing in its relationship with the European Union but I prefer to focus instead on the positive sides of Israel.
During the many visits I have been taking during my Chairmanship I have been faced with a country full of energy, with on-going discussions on every subject one could imagine, debating the world, engaging in energy, security, agriculture, hi-tech, social issues and so much more. One can say that applies to every democracy in the world, however, not every democracy in the world is surrounded by the Middle East turmoil or is on the news every day for negative reasons. This is Israel!
For me as a non-Jew, Israel is about freedom, is about development and is about an example to our member states on how to make a living and facing existential threats every single day. Yes, there are so many negative things as well but this is the reality of every single country. And by far one should be proud to see Israel as such a successful country, in a region where the opposite is the rule.
Keeping this in mind, I must say that my role as Chair of the Delegation is to push for the improvement of the EU-Israel relations and to move beyond secondary considerations that are undermining the partnership and in the end are hurting more the Union than the State of Israel itself.
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