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September 03, 1993 - Image 60

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1993-09-03

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

Q1

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Israel And The EC
Butt Heads Over Trade

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Jerusalem wants a-new accord, but must overcome
European favoritism toward the Arab world.

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russets — The European
Community, Israel's
largest trading partner
and the key to its future
prosperity, is prepared to radi-
cally upgrade its trade relations
— but Israel will have to pay a
high political price, according to
a senior EC official here.
The official, who deals with
EC foreign relations but who
can not be identified, made it
clear that if Israel is to sub-
stantially improve its trade re-
lations with the EC, it will have
to accept the harsh reality that
it must deal with a continent
more concerned about its future
political influence in the Arab
world than its economic rela-
tions with Jerusalem.
Trade between Israel and the
EC is based on an antiquated
accord considered fair and eq-
uitable when it was signed 18
years ago, but which failed to
make allowance for Israel's
high-tech and industrial leaps
or of its burgeoning science-
based research-and-develop-
ment programs.
The result is that last year
produced a $5 billion trade gap
in favor of the EC, which ex-
ported goods and services worth
some $9.5 billion to Israel, while
importing just $4.5 billion in re-
turn. (By comparison, Israeli
imports from the United States
totalled $3.6 billion, while ex-
ports stood at $4 billion).
Israel's growing trade gap
with Europe, its lack of natur-
al trading partners among its
immediate neighbors and the
widespread perception that
debt-ridden Washington is
preparing to scale down its civil-
ian aid has injected a sense of
urgency into the business of up-
grading the 1975 economic ac-
cord with the EC.
Brussels, however, is not
Washington and the politically
chilly attitude toward Israel
among Europe's buttoned-down
bureaucrats here does little to
reflect the economic advantage
they currently enjoy.
According to the official, a
proposed new accord will en-
hance Israel's ability to export
high-tech products to Europe
and improve European invest-
ment in scientific research. It
will also open the door to in-
creased EC investment in Is-
'rael, participation in research
and development and joint yen-

tures.
Last year, the EC rejected Is-
rael's request for a new agree-
ment on agriculture to
compensate for the relative ad-
vantage enjoyed by Mediter-
ranean member-states, but the
official said that "there might
even be something for Israel in
this field.
"I think the Israelis will find
it an extremely sexy package
and it will contain many of the
elements that we know they
want." However, he added, any
new economic deal with Israel
will be made conditional on "po-
litical progress and human
rights."
It still had not been decided
whether the linkage mecha-
nism will be introduced when
the draft negotiating mandate
is formulated by Brussels later
this year, or whether it will be
inserted at the end of the
process as a condition for im-
plementing the agreement.
The official acknowledged
that the EC enjoyed a substan-

Prime Minister
Rabin believes the
EC discriminates
against Israel.

tial trade surplus with Israel
and that the EC member-states
would not act out of altruism in
formulating the revised accord.
He acknowledged, too, that
while Israel had much to gain
from a new agreement, the EC
also stood to benefit from deep-
er involvement in Israel, par-
ticularly in the field of high-tech
products, some of which are
more sophisticated than their
EC equivalents.
The official added, however,
that Israel will have to comply
with still-unstated political ob-
jectives and that it will have to
"improve its human rights
record."
"When a delegation from the
EC visited Israel recently, they
were interrogated for an hour
at the airport before being al-
lowed into the country," he said.
"We can only imagine how
much worse it must be for
Palestinians."
The official also noted that
the EC was anxious to play a

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