Brussels - The European Union on Thursday congratulated
Israel on the 60th anniversary of its independence, with officials
vowing to forge even closer ties with the Middle Eastern state.
The head of the bloc's executive, European Commission President
Jose Manuel Barroso, said Israel's significance for Europeans went
'beyond normal forms of cooperation with a close neighbour.'
'Both the European Union and the state of Israel were born out of
the same great convulsion of the Second World War and the
Shoah,' Barroso said in a message.
'In its 60 years as an independent state, Israel has had to
contend with many challenges. Yet through it all it has continued to
adapt, develop and prosper.
'We now take almost for granted impressive Israeli achievements in
fields such as science and technology, industry, agriculture,
education and the arts. In retrospect, we can only wonder at how all
this was achieved under such difficult circumstances,' Barroso added.
The commission chief noted that the EU and Israel were already
cooperating on a range of issues such as climate change,
counter-terrorism 'and the fight against racism and anti-Semitism'.
The EU is Israel's main trading partner and Israel is the only
non-European country to participate in the EU's Research and
Development programme, noted External Affairs Commissioner Benita
Ferrero-Waldner.
'Hundreds of project proposals by Israeli researchers have
received EU funding, for example developing innovative cancer
diagnostic techniques, hydrogen cars, machine translation techniques.
Also, Israeli students are benefiting from scholarships under the
EU's Erasmus Mundus exchange programme,' Ferrero-Waldner told
Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
And Israel is now close to being granted 'special status' within
the EU's neighbourhood policy, officials in Brussels said.
Such a special status might include deals in the area of air
transport, higher education, trade in agricultural products and
services, social security, customs, information society, environment
as well as consumer protection.
'The EU and Israel are closer now than they were ever before,' the
commissioner said.
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