Germans Buck EU Labeling

YERUSHALAYIM

A spokesperson for Germany’s ruling party spoke out on Thursday against the EU guidelines that call for labeling goods made in Yehudah and Shomron.

“In this case there foremost is a danger of a stigma. An anti-Israeli movement might exploit the decision and put it to use on anti-Israeli campaigns,” Jürgen Hardt, foreign policy spokesman of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s parliamentary group in the Bundestag, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Hardt added that CDU “considers that stigmatization and boycott are not [likely] to facilitate the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians.”

“As a signal to our friends in Israel, I would have appreciated, if the European Commission in this case would have abstained from the implementation of the European regulation,” Hardt added, and said it would have little impact on trade.

Meanwhile, Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that he will not allow city buildings to be used for events that seek to delegitimize Israel.

The mayor allowed a BDS lecture against Israel to take place recently on in a city cultural center, but declared that “I am of the view that the city of Munich in the future will no longer provide cost-free rooms for such events.”

The anti-Israel BDS is unacceptable to him because it “evokes the worst memories for our Jewish citizens,” an apparent reference to the Nazi boycott movement of Jewish businesses in the prelude to the Holocaust.

On Tuesday, Reiter promised Charlotte Knobloch, the head of Munich’s 9,500-member Jewish community, that there will be no future support for BDS events in municipal venues.

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