(IsraelNN.com) The European Union's Parliament has conditioned continued Israeli participation in EU programs on the boycott of Israeli companies and organizations based in Judea, Samaria or eastern Jerusalem.

Israel was the first of 16 countries involved in the EU's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) to request to take part in the European-led research and development programs. Over 600 research projects in the ENP framework have thus far benefited from Israeli involvement.

The EU Parliament's resolution on Israel's place in EU development programs, adopted last week, said, "Companies and organisations based in the settlements in the occupied territories must not be eligible to take part." The reason put forward in the resolution for barring the participation of entities from Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem is that doing so "complies with EU law and policies." To that end, the resolution calls for "tightening up checks on Israeli products imported into the EU under preferential trade rules. ...Infringement proceedings should be started if products from the occupied Palestinian territories bearing Israeli labels are exported to the Union."

The EU resolution was drafted by Belgian Socialist MEP Véronique De Keyser.

The other ENP countries are Algeria, Armenia, the Palestinian Authority, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Lebanon, Libya, Jordan, Morocco, Moldova, Syria, Tunisia and Ukraine. These nations have an unfettered right to take part in EU programs, despite serious human rights violations common in several of them.