13 Avenue Victoria
B-1000 Brussels
Belgium
URGENT
José Manuel
Barroso,
President of the
European Commission
Dear President,
I wish to draw
your attention on the vote by the University College Union (UCU) of the
In the immediate aftermath the following motion was
passed by the Board of Governors of Ben Gurion University of the
“The Board of Governors condemns in the
strongest terms the attempts to boycott Israeli institutions of higher
education which is counter to Statute 5 of the International Council of Science
that states: “ ‘…freedom of association and expression, access to data
and
I strongly believe
that UCU’s action needs to be unequivocally and rapidly condemned at the
highest level of the European Union.
Considerable amounts of the European budgetary funds finance
collaborative undertakings with the higher education system in
I would hope that
an unbending stance by the EU would rapidly lead to the repeal of the
incriminated motion and that normal academic relations can again be pursued in
all serenity.
Yours sincerely,
Paul N.
Goldschmidt
Director European
Community, (ret.)
Attachments: UCU
motion and related documents.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Tel: +32 (02)
6475310 E-mail: paul.goldschmidt@skynet.be