EU Council of Ministers President to meet with Olmert, Perez and Abbas – EU press release/Non-UN document

Luís Amado with Olmert, Perez and Abbas in the Middle East 

On Monday the 10th, the President of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, Luís Amado, will convene with the Israeli Prime Minister and, later on, with the Palestinian President. On this day, a meeting between Ehud Olmert and Mahmud Abbas on the Middle East peace process is also foreseen.

The Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, who at the moment is President-in-Office of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, arrived on Sunday at Tel Aviv for a two-day visit to Israel and Palestine, with the objective of showing the engagement of the 27 in the peace process of the Middle East.

On Monday Luís Amado will meet, at 9:00 local time (two more than Lisbon time), in Tel Aviv, with Israeli Vice-Prime-Minister and Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, leaving after for Jerusalem, for a working meeting with Vice-Prime-Minister Haim Ramon.

At noon Luís Amado will convene with Yossi Beilin, leader of the Meretz-Yahad party, and at 13:00 he will meet with Tzipi Livni, Minister of Foreign Affairs, with whom he will hold a joint press conference at around 14:45.

The representative of the European Union will then convene with Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, at 15:30, and after he will be with the President of Israel, Shimon Peres, at 17:15, leaving then for Ramallah, in the West Bank, where he will spend the night.

In that Palestinian city Luís Amado will meet with Mahmud Abbas in Mukata, the official residence of the President of the Palestinian Authority, where a press conference will be held at 20:15.

There will also be a working meeting followed by a dinner with Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad.

On Tuesday, the second and last day of this visit to the Middle East, Luís Amado will visit the Portuguese representation in Ramallah and afterwards will meet with representatives of the Palestinian civil society, before returning to Israel.

Back in Jerusalem, he will attend a meeting with the special envoy of the Quartet for the Middle East (ONU, European Union, United States and Russia), ex-Prime-Minister Tony Blair.