Commissioner Cresson meets Israeli/Palestinian youth delegation
Mrs. Edith Cresson, Commissioner responsible for EU youth policies, recently met a delegation of Israeli and Palestinian youth leaders. The members of the delegation were visiting Brussels, at the invitation of the EU's Youth Forum, as part of the Youth for Europe exchanges with non-member countries. During the meeting Mrs. Cresson outlined her priorities in the field of youth politics and stressed the importance of youth cooperation as a support measure to the Middle East peace process. Mr. Offer Dekel, Chairperson of Israel's Labour Party Youth, said that a trilateral project between European, Israeli and Palestinian youth would contribute to future stability in the Middle East and should gradually be extended to all other countries in the area in order to establish, in the medium-term perspective, a Middle East youth council. The Vice-President of the General Union of Palestine Students, Mr. Ibrahim Khraishi recalled the decades of forced isolation of Palestinian youth and welcomed the European interest in bringing together European and Middle East youth as a learning opportunity for all those involved. Mr. Brian Carty, the Youth Forum's Secretary General, underlined the positive role that youth organizations play in favouring peace at the grassroots level and expressed the Youth Forum's interest in facilitating trans-Mediterranean youth initiatives. With reference to the forthcoming Euro-Mediterranean intergovernmental conference to be held at the end of November in Barcelona, he stated that youth cooperation should be given priority in the governmental plans for the Mediterranean region.
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