A delegation of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, is to visit the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday to attend a meeting with their European counterparts from the parliament’s delegation for relations with Israel.
The Israeli delegation will be chaired by Prof. Avishai Braverman, a Labour (opposition) member of the Knesset who chairs the economic affairs committee and former minister. Other members of the delegation will include Shimon Solomon from Yesh Atid, Yakov Asher from United Torah Judaism, Hanna Swaid, an Israeli Christian Arab member of Hadash, Rina Frenkel from Yesh Atid and Nadav Eshcar, Director of European affairs at the Knesset international department.
The European Parliament delegation for relations with Israel is chaired since September by Italian MEP Fulvio Martusciello, a member of the European People's Party, the main political group in the European parliament. Vice-chairs of the delegation are Dutch Bastiaan Belder and Czech Olga Sehnalova. Martusciello and Belder both visited Israel end of October.
On the agenda of the interparliamentary meeting are among others the relations between the EU and Israel - the EU is Israel's main trade partner-, the domestic situation in Israel, the situation in the wider Middle East and nuclear Iran.
The Israeli delegation will also meet the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani.
The visit comes as the 751-member European parliament started a divisive debate on whether the EU should recognize a Palestinian state. A vote on the issue is scheduled for December 17 during the plenary session of the European parliament.
In Israel, meanwhile, speculation continues that early elections are possible over fraying relations within the coalition government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over a bill to enshrine the Jewish character of the state of Israel and the budget.