In Vienna ECI executive director Rijk van Dam met with senior officials at the Austrian foreign ministry who promised to convey the concerns of the Coalition to the government. In their discussion Van Dam shared the position of the Coalition on Hezbollah, which immediately should be put on the EU terrorist list, as well as his concern about the threat from Iran. The issue of funding of Hamas was a central point in the discussion. Mr van Dam stressed the position of the Coalition which is that the European Union cannot possibly fund an organisation which they have placed on their terrorist list.

Also the vice-chair of the Austrian – Israeli friendship group Dr Richard Schmitz promised to raise these issues with the Austrian government.

Prior to the working visit to Vienna a delegation of the European Coalition for Israel, lead by Rijk van Dam, visited Helsinki and met with senior government officials and members of the Finnish parliament. At a meeting with a government minister it was ensured that the Finnish presidency will stress budgetary discipline during its six months presidency and will not tolerate corruption or mismanagement by the aid receiving nations. The minister however was uninformed about the details in the corruption and mismanagement of EU-funds by the Palestinian authority but promised to study in detail the European Leadership Funding Model which the Coalition previously has presented in the European parliament and in the British House of Commons and now was presented to the Finnish government and parliament. The presentation may prove to have be timely since the government was to formulate its program the following week. Also MP Jari Vilén, the current chair of the Grand Committee, ensured the delegation that Finland monitors the situation in the Middle Eastclosely and hoped that Hamas would eventually change and become more democratic once it takes up governmental responsibilities.

Juergen Buehler, one of the German representatives in the ECI delegation, was of a different opinion.

- Hitler did not change when he came into government, he said on behalf of the Coalition.

One of the main focuses during the visit to Helsinki was the Finnish bilateral funding of the Palestinian textbooks. Finland has invested

2 million euro in Palestinian textbooks from 1999-2001 and is due to invest another 3 million. According to a new study from the Palestinian Media Watch "the schoolbooks are worse than ever". The state of Israel continues to be de-legitimized in different ways and the books are full of anti-Semitic remarks. In Helsinki the Coalition met with the responsible officials at the Foreign Ministry who promised to study the report and take any necessary action to ensure that the textbooks fulfills basic criteria and meet UNESCO standards.

Both chairman Vilén of the Grand committee and the minister promised to look in to this controversy to ensure that no Finnish tax money would go to an education of hatred and glorification of suicide bombers.

In this process the Finnish-Israel parliamentary friendship group may play a crucial role. Out of 200 delegates in the Finnish parliament 20 members, representing all the mainstream parties, belong to the friendship group. Current chair Sari Essayah and vice-chair Martin Saarikangas promised to raise the issues to make sure that action will be taken. Each Friday the Parliament has a chance to put questions to the responsible government minister and this practice will continue throughout the Finnish presidency from July 1 – December 31.

Both capital visits proved to be successful in that they managed to raise issues which are crucial to European-Israeli relations. The next visit to a country holding the EU presidency is planned for December 2006 inBerlin. Germany will take over the EU-presidency from Finland on January 1, 2007.