Foreign affairs

The EU does not recognise the sovereignty of Israel over the territories the country has occupied since 1967 (OTs) and applies a policy of differentiation vis-à-vis Israel and the OTs. In areas such as trade, origin labelling and EU-funded programmes, the EU has put measures in place to ensure that Israeli settlements in the OTs are not treated as part of Israel.

Likewise, the EU’s 2011 adequacy decision for Israel, which allows for the free flow of personal data, states in Article 2 that it should be applied in accordance with international law, i.e. excluding the OTs.

However, Israel treats the settlements as part of its territory for most purposes, including data transfer.

Between 2007 and 2020, the European Union (EU) and its member states provided no less than 11.6 billion euros in aid to the DRC, making the country the fifth largest recipient of EU aid in the world. The EU, as a major donor to the DRC, therefore has a crucial role to play in encouraging transparent governance of the country while ensuring that corrupt funds do not enter the European market.

The Collective of Sahara Human Rights Defenders – CODESA has collected signatories for its urgent appeal calling for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to deploy a permanent mission to Western Sahara for the protection of Saharawi civilians.

The campaign started on 20 January 2021 collecting signatures on the appeal below from
Parliamentarians, NGOs, international figures, political parties, trade unions, women and youth
organization, and global civil society groups. 

The Appeal was also signed by 150 Parlamentarians from the European Parliament, UK Parliament, French Parliament, Spanish Parliament, Swedish Parliament, Swiss Parliament and the Mauritanian Parliament as well as 177 organizations from 41 countries around the world representing all
continents including international civil society groups, institutes, trade unions and political parties.

In this letter fifty-seven MEPs call on the High Representative to reconsider his visit to Russia given that such visit could possibly be used for internal propaganda purposes.

Article by Tineke Strik, Member of the European Parliament, Greens/EFA spokesperson for North Macedonia and Maja Morachanin, Member of the Sobranie and leader of the Green party (DOM) in North Macedonia

In this letter, twenty-eights MEPs call on the Commissioners to support the RELEASE 2020 initiative that proposes a flexible mechanism for debt reduction and sustainable development of the developing and low-income countries whose debt has been suspended as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

In this letter the Intergroup for Western Sahara expressed its deep concern with the resumption of armed conflict in Western Sahara. They condemn Morocco’s illegal military action in the Guerguerat region and the subsequent construction of a wall in a region that is clearly part of the territory of Western Sahara under the control of the Polisario Front as agreed under the UN ceasefire agreement.

In this cross party statement, twenty-four MEPs urge the European Council to approve the negotiating frameworks for North Macedonia and Albania and stop further delaying EU accession talks.

In this letter fifty-three MEPs demand the High Representative Vice President of the European Commissioner Josep Borrell Fontelles whether the EEAS has started developing a concept of the donors’ conference for Belarus, and whether there is any tentative timeline concerning this initiative.

Draft Report on human rights protection and the EU external migration policy (2020/2116(INI))

Committee on Foreign Affairs

Rapporteur: Tineke Strik