Lively debate on the Palestinian issue in the Nordic Council
"Discriminating people because of their ethnicity is unfortunately not new in the world. We have seen it before. We saw it in the apartheid regime in South Africa, and we say it during segregation in the American south. It is a racial policy which was reprehensible then and is equally reprehensible today" said Håkan Svenneling (V) when he presented the member's proposal on behalf of the Nordic Council's Left-wing Socialist Green Group (VSG).
In the proposal, the VSG group urges the members of the Nordic Council, all the Nordic governments and parliaments to recognise the state of Palestine as a sovereign and independent state.
"We also urge Israelis and Palestinians to help the Nordic countries to work for peace and reconciliation through peace agreements based on international law and UN resolutions for a mutual recognition of both the state of Israel and the state of Palestine", said Svenneling.
The proposal met with strong opposition from the Conservative Group and Nordic Freedom.
"This initiative is a textbook example of how the Nordic Council can make itself completely irrelevant. We run the risk of using the limited time we have together to talk about circumstances we cannot influence in any way", said Michael Tetzschner (H) of the Conservative Group .
The VSG group's chairman Høgni Hoydal (T) questioned Tetzschner's criticism that the Nordic Council should not discuss foreign policy matters.
"In my opinion that is exactly what we have tried to do for a long time, that is to say that we should now also discuss these matters. We do not impose anything on the parliamentarians but we can discuss matters and address them to our parliaments and governments", said Hoydal.
The chairman of the party group Nordic Freedom, Juho Eerola (True Finns), stressed the importance of the individual Nordic countries' right to practise its own foreign policy. Satu Haapanen (Green) of the Centre Group replied to her countryman by saying that the Nordic Council both can and should manifest its views on unsatisfactory states of affairs in the world.
The member's proposal on the recognition of an independent state of Palestine was referred for further discussion to the Nordic Council Presidium.
