Foreign ministers petition EU to urge labelling of settlement products
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/16/foreign-ministers-petition-eu-to-urge-labelling-of-settlement-products
Foreign ministers from 16 EU countries – including the UK – have signed a letter to the EU’s foreign policy head, Federica Mogherini, requesting she expedite moves to ensure the clear labelling of goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements and sold in Europe.
The letter, written earlier this week – and leaked to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Thursday, comes amid mounting pressure from ministers in a number of European countries to advance punitive policies targeting Israel’s settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
That pressure has been mounting since the collapse last year of the US-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and amid concern that a new coalition government being assembled by the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, will have no interest in advancing a two-state solution.
Among the signatories of the letter are France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Malta, Austria, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia, Hungary, Finland, Denmark, The Netherlands and Luxembourg – with only Germany’s foreign minister among the five biggest European states not endorsing it.
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