Today's Date:

I am very happy to see that there is a lot of common ground between the approach France proposed to the Security Council, in a draft resolution, a few days ago, and these Council conclusions adopted by the 25 European Union courtiers.

Indeed, since the onset of this conflict we have been asking for an "immediate cessation" of hostilities; this is in the text. (…) After this "immediate cessation" of hostilities, we're asking for [definition of] the conditions for a political agreement – the sole basis on which to obtain a sustainable ceasefire. So the principle of seeking the political conditions for obtaining a sustainable ceasefire is also in the text.

For us, the presence of a UN-mandated multinational force is obviously possible only when there's a political agreement, in other words, at that time. This French idea has also been adopted. We wanted the multinational force to be under UN mandate, and this too is the case.

Finally, we thought it necessary to send a message to the Israeli authorities both on the provision of safe corridors, i.e. air, sea or land corridors, – and this is in the text – and on the creation of corridors in southern Lebanon, which is also in the text. (…)

I'm satisfied to see that on the foreign policy front, the European Union is capable – vis-à-vis this conflict – of speaking with a single voice. Aside from this joint statement, we also discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which can't be addressed separately, saying that it was important to stress that the situation in Gaza was becoming increasingly worrying. During the meeting, I said that in the future we'll have to give greater support to the active efforts to resolve this crisis by helping, in particular, the Egyptian mediation find the elements of a solution to it. These include the unconditional release, as soon as possible, of Corporal Shalit, an Israeli who also has French nationality, and the release of the Hamas ministers and members of parliament, currently imprisoned. (…)./.