VP/HR — Water supply to the new city of Rawabi

3.3.2015

Question for written answer E-003482-15
to the Commission (Vice-President/High Representative)
Rule 130
Miguel Viegas (GUE/NGL)

This month, the Israeli Government decided, in a totally unacceptable manner, to cut off the water supply to the newly-constructed city of Rawabi, thereby preventing it from being officially opened. This project is a new city built on a hill in the West Bank with capacity to house 12 000 people and is equipped with all necessary infrastructure, including an outdoor shopping centre, amphitheatre, shops, gym, swimming pool, cinema and schools.

Israel, which controls the area through which the water supply passes, wants the leaders of the Palestinian Authority to return to the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee. The Palestinian Authority left the group in 2010 as it did not want to approve projects for the supply of water to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, built illegally and without regard for international law, but with the connivance of the EU. Losses have been calculated at around EUR 25 million as a result.

In view of this situation, I would like to ask what the High Representative plans to do with regard to Israel, a country with which the EU maintains trade agreements based on respect for human rights, in the light of this inadmissible behaviour.