Mr. Martin Konený:

Few societies in the world have been subjected to such comprehensive and debilitating economic restrictions as Palestine. This is a well-known fact. There have been many studies into the issue. One study, which has been cited by the World Bank, estimates that the cost of all the Israeli restrictions on the Palestinian economy amounts to 85% of the Palestinian Authority's, PA's, annual GDP. That is just one of the estimates. The restrictions are all-encompassing. It starts with access to land and water. As the committee will know, 60% of the West Bank comprises area C, which is under direct Israeli control. This area contains most of the agricultural and grazing land, water and natural resources. Palestinian access to these resources is greatly limited by the occupation's restrictions.

Another aspect relates to trade in goods and products between Palestine and the EU. There is an extensive interim association agreement on free trade between the EU and the PA, which offers very preferential terms to Palestinian exporters but this agreement is neutralised or nullified in practice by the Israeli restrictions that are in place. Whenever someone wants to export something from Palestine, it needs to go via the Israeli checkpoints and needs to be offloaded, loaded again and controlled. It is the same case in Israeli ports. Trade, therefore, faces a lot of disadvantages and delays. There is no level playing field between the Palestinian exporters who face all of these restrictions and the Israeli settlement exporters and businesses who export to the world and the EU and who enjoy extensive government subsidies and support. This is something to bear in mind when thinking about this issue. It is reflected in something we mentioned in our submission, which is the estimate that the volume of imports to the EU from settlements is approximately 15 times greater than the volume of imports from Palestinians in the occupied territories, even though there are many more Palestinians than settlers. I have not even mentioned Gaza, which is under an even more stringent set of restrictions. I will pause there.