Major interpellation - Israel's involvement in projects financed under Horizon 2020
6.2.2018
Major interpellation for written answer with debate O-000014/2018
to the Commission
Rule 130b
Patrick Le Hyaric, Martina Michels, Paloma López Bermejo, Ángela Vallina, Tania González Peñas, Sofia Sakorafa, Marisa Matias, Josu Juaristi Abaunz, Martina Anderson, Matt Carthy, Lynn Boylan, Liadh Ní Riada, Eleonora Forenza, João Ferreira, João Pimenta Lopes, Miguel Viegas, Younous Omarjee, Xabier Benito Ziluaga, Javier Couso Permuy, Curzio Maltese, Lola Sánchez Caldentey, Luke Ming Flanagan, Barbara Spinelli, Nikolaos Chountis, Takis Hadjigeorgiou, Marina Albiol Guzmán, Marie-Christine Vergiat, Neoklis Sylikiotis, Merja Kyllönen, Kostadinka Kuneva, Maria Lidia Senra Rodríguez, Miguel Urbán Crespo, Helmut Scholz, Marie-Pierre Vieu, Dimitrios Papadimoulis, Stelios Kouloglou, Estefanía Torres Martínez, Sabine Lösing
The purpose of the ‘Law Train’ research project, which is funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation and in which Israel is involved, is to ‘harmonise and share interrogation techniques among the countries concerned in order to meet the new challenges of transnational crime’.
The project has a budget of EUR 5 095 687.50, half of which will be transferred to the Israeli institutions involved, and one of the coordinating bodies is the Israeli Ministry of Security (IMS).
1. Did the Commission consider the IMS’s serious and repeated breaches of the provisions of the Financial Regulation of the European Union (Article 106), the International Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Articles 1 and 4), the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Articles 7 and 8), the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Article 4) and the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 4, 76 and 147) before agreeing to Israel’s involvement in the project?
2. In the light of the Israeli Government’s repeated violations of international law, as exemplified by the conditions in which Palestinian prisoners are detained and imprisoned, the occupation of Palestinian territories, the destruction of Palestinian humanitarian infrastructure funded by the European Union and the failure to comply with UN resolutions, has the time not come to consider banning all Israeli bodies from involvement in projects financed under Horizon 2020?