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Source: http://euobserver.com/opinion/117303
Israeli Mayor Responds to EU Blacklist
(EU Observer) Haim Bibas - Residents of the Modi'in Maccabim-Re'ut municipality, the thriving Israeli city of 80,000 of which I am mayor, discovered last week that several neighborhoods, due to their proximity to the West Bank, had been added to a list of areas excluded from the EU-Israel free trade agreement. In effect, the EU no longer considers these homes and indeed sections of our city to be part of the State of Israel. Adding parts of Modi'in to the EU's free trade "blacklist" exposes the dangers of making decisions from afar, divorced from the reality on the ground. Even in Israel's dynamic democracy, which encompasses a vast spectrum of opinions, the status of Modi'in has never been in question. Nor has it ever been placed on the agenda by the Palestinians. Modi'in is plainly not an area under dispute. And yet, the EU saw fit to judge differently from afar. The EU confirmed that only three parts of Modi'in had been included on the list of areas from which manufactured products would not be allowed custom-free entry into Europe. Yet, each of these areas is purely residential, situated far from our city's industrial zone. In other words, the inclusion of Modi'in in the EU's guidelines is in practice utterly superfluous to any trade agreement. The writer is mayor of the City of Modi'in Maccabim-Re'ut.