MEPs back free trade with Palestinian territories

Though trade between the bloc and the Palestinian territories is tiny - amounting to just €6.1 million from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 2009, MEPs hope that the move will boost exports and begin to develop the Palestinian Authority.

"The future of the region depends on the improvement of the economic development,” said Socialist deputy Maria Eleni Koppa said of the vote. “Trade can serve also as a development mechanism that contributes to the reduction of poverty and the establishment of political stability.”

The unanimity in the committee suggests that the measures, which would be valid for ten years, will receive a friendly hearing when the full sitting of the house votes on the deal in late September in Strasbourg.

If passed, the measures would enter into force before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday issued a call for European states to speak with “one voice” when the United Nations General Assembly votes on whether to recognise Palestinian statehood later this month.

"The 27 countries of the European Union must express themselves with one voice," he told an annual meeting of French ambassadors.

Israeli diplomats have been heavily lobbying EU capitals not to welcome Palestinian independence at the UN, arguing that this must come about through negotiation and not unilateral moves. The Jewish state hopes to achieve a similar division amongst European powers as occurred in 2009? when Kosovo declared independence.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is to discuss the issue on Friday (2 September) with the bloc’s foreign ministers.