Bratislava has undercut European reaction to Israel’s drastic carve-up of the West Bank, signalling that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a new Brussels’ inside-man – Slovakia’s populist prime minister Janez Janša.

Netanyahu’s decision to build a settlement in the strategic E1 area of the West Bank, carving the two-state solution into oblivion, was due to have met with condemnation “on behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states”.

But this was downgraded to a lower level, in protocol terms, to a statement by Kaja Kallas, the EU high representative for foreign affairs.

Kallas’ remarks were also larded with gratitude that “we [the EU] note the recent charges brought by the Israeli prosecutors against some perpetrators of such [West Bank] violence.”

Israel’s prosecutions have near-zero outcomes.

And the diplomatic downgrade was due to a veto by Slovenia, diplomatic sources said.

Netanyahu used to rely on Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán to routinely defang EU statements.

But Orbán lost office in April, while Janša returned to power in May, and turned his own and the country’s Middle East policy upside down.

During his last time in office, on 19 June 2021, Janša signed up to EU sanctions against Israeli firms if they dared to build E1.

“The European Council stresses that businesses should not bid for construction contracts for E1 or other settlement developments and underlines the legal and reputational consequences for businesses participating in settlement construction, including the risk of serious breaches of international law,” said the Janša-signed 2021 text.

And the new E1 construction was seen as such a grave development that even other Israel-friendly EU states, such as Austria, Germany, Greece, and Italy spoke out forcefully against it this week.

But fast forward to 2026 and Janša is not only degrading EU diplomacy, he also gave VIP treatment to Israeli settler extremist, Yossi Dagan, in Ljubljana on 15 June, while Israeli private-intelligence firm Black Cube tried to tip the balance in his favour in Slovenia’s May vote.