Media: Dutch MEP wants Hezbollah on EU terrorist list - European Jewish Congress

A leading Dutch member of the European Parliament has called on the European Union to include the Lebanese-based terror group Hezbollah on its official list of proscribed organizations. European Jewish Congress, 12.03.2013 In a strongly-worded letter to EU foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, ahead of the meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday, Marietje Schaake from the Dutch D66 party – a social liberal party - wrote that “internal divisions between EU member states give Hezbollah the freedom to continue its unmistakeably terrorist and destabilizing activities.” “By placing Hezbollah on the EU list of terrorist organizations all doubts about the legitimacy of the group will be removed and its financial means coming out of the EU will dry up," the letter continued. "While no one questions the responsibility of Hezbollah for the attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, on EU territory, we continue to be lenient towards this terrorist organization which makes money within the EU through drug trafficking and other crimes. This money finances the organisation's activities in countries like Syria and Bahrain. The EU should take a clear and credible position and cut every link in the chain of terrorist activities of Hezbollah", Schaake wrote. Schaake also tabled a formal parliamentary question to Ashton about Hezbollah, stating that since its establishment in 1982, the terror group has been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks “usually on Western or Jewish targets”.