Jean Asselborn, Discours à la Conférence internationale sur le soutien de l'économie palestinienne pour la reconstruction de Gaza

- Seul le discours prononcé fait foi -

Excellencies,
Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to warmly thank our Egyptian friends for having taken the very timely initiative of this Conference, as well as our Norwegian friends for having lent their valuable support to this endeavor.

Today we are meeting to address the consequences of a very tragic war that has been waged not even 400 km from here, and where still today people have to live in a terrible humanitarian
situation.

I would like to pay tribute to the efforts deployed by President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad in order to prepare this Conference by finding urgent solutions to bring international aid to Gaza and to bring Gaza back to life. We very much welcome the Early Recovery and Reconstruction Plan for Gaza presented by Prime Minister Fayyad and the priorities identified therein. Let me also welcome the valuable work done so far by the UNRWA in the framework of the quick response plan, as well as the post-conflict assessment prepared by the Egyptian authorities.

The successful implementation of the Palestinian recovery plan depends of course on several factors that have to be addressed urgently. Indeed Inter-Palestinian reconciliation is a prerequisite for a sustainable recovery as well as for the development of the Palestinian society both in the Gaza strip and in the West Bank. We are encouraged by the results of the Palestinian national dialogue meeting that took place last week in Cairo under the sponsorship of President Mubarak. We are well aware that this is a quite difficult and even painful undertaking, but as indicated in the joint statement, it is an absolute necessity. We deeply appreciate the perseverance of our Egyptian friends, of my colleague Ahmet Aboul Gheit, and call on all the regional actors to lend their full support to this endeavor.

We also need to see tangible progress in the full implementation of the UN Security Council resolution 1860. A mutually agreed and sustainable ceasefire, as well as an opening of the crossings for goods and persons will be crucial both for early recovery and the rebuilding of Gaza.

Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today’s conference is not only about pledging political support to the Palestinian Authority and to the efforts deployed by Egypt, but it is also about pledging concrete financial support to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis and the suffering of the civilian population in the Gaza strip.

In this context, I am pleased to inform you that Luxembourg is determined to share its part of the burden.

I recall the commitments I made at the Paris conference in December 2007: over the three-year period 2008-2010, we will be providing more than 21 million EUR to support development programmes and humanitarian aid operations in the occupied Palestinian territories.

In 2008, our aid assistance has reached the unprecedented level of 6.6 million EUR.

This year, our contributions will be increased to 7.55 million EUR in total. Following the recent conflict in Gaza, we have allocated more than 2 million EUR in terms of humanitarian aid, emergency assistance and early recovery.

Over the next three years, Luxembourg’s overall financial contribution will amount to 22 million EURO, thus going beyond our Paris commitments both in terms of duration and funding.

Let me be clear on the reconstruction effort: we are ready to fully support this effort, while hoping that it will be possible to get the conditions right, both politically and practically.

This current month, as well as the coming ones, will be critical for the Middle East. After this most recent war, we should not hesitate to have a critical look at the policies pursued so far, to draw the lessons of what went wrong in order to enable us to interrupt this seemingly endless cycle of destruction and to finally bring peace to this region.

Crisis management can not be enough.

The long-term reconstruction of Gaza as an integral part of a future viable, contiguous and democratic Palestinian state can only be achieved through the successful conclusion of the Middle East Peace Process. If the parameters of a solution are well-known by now, we need to see the political will to implement it, of course and foremost the will of the two concerned parties, Israelis and Palestinians, but also the will of a united Arab League, as well as of the wider international community. Despite the complicated situation, let us not loose the acquis of the Annapolis process. We should strongly encourage the parties to build on what has been achieved and to pursue this process. Only by committing themselves to the path of peace, they can count on the firm backing of the International community. The price to pay for a failure of this process will be too high, not only for the parties, but for the entire region and the whole International community.

Thank you.