Italy and Germany have defended Israel from EU trade sanctions, but momentum is building for action on West Bank settlers.

“I do not believe that breaking a trade agreement is a useful tool, because then the general Israeli population will be affected,” said Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani in Luxembourg on Tuesday (21 April).

“We have a similar position to that of the German Federal Republic,” he said.

Italy and Germany’s support would be needed to freeze Israel’s EU trade perks, worth some €1bn a year, in a qualified majority vote (QMV).

But Tajani declined to move, despite appeals by Spanish foreign minister José Manuel Albares and Belgian foreign minister Maxime Prévot.

Israel was enacting “horrible laws, like the one concerning the [Palestinian-only] death penalty” and guilty of “indiscriminate bombing” in Lebanon, said Albares going into the EU foreign ministers’ meeting.

Speaking of Israeli air strikes which killed some 360 people, Prévot said in Luxembourg on Tuesday: “I was personally in Beirut on 8 April the day the [Israeli] bombs fell, a few hundred metres from the Belgian embassy”.

“Israel’s disproportionate and indiscriminate reaction is totally condemnable,” Prévot said.

Italy-Israel rift

Tajani also shielded Israel despite a rift in relations between Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Meloni having imposed bilateral defence sanctions on Israel, after he became toxic to centre-right Italian voters.

But Tajani did complain at length of Israeli soldiers’ desecration of Christian artefacts and attacks on Christian villages in Lebanon, saying in Luxembourg: “This is an offence for the entire Christian world … I hope that in the end the person responsible [for shooting a crucifix] will be punished”.

Germany’s foreign minister Johann Wadephul said the Israel free-trade freeze was “inappropriate”, but added: “I expect the Israeli government as a whole to counter this settler violence more clearly, more firmly and with all means available”.

Czech foreign minister Petr Macinka said: “We have a relatively important, significant, but also a very dark part of history in common [with Israel]”, referencing Holocaust-era crimes.

“For this reason, it would be quite difficult for us [the Czech Republic] to proceed with the freezing of the [EU-Israel] association agreement. And I think a number of European countries feel the same,” he added.

EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas also said: “suspension of the [EU-Israel] association agreement [on free trade], will it stop the expansion on the West Bank [settlements]? You know, this is probably also not true”.

By contrast, Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Slovenia, as well as Spain and Belgium had supported the Israel free-trade freeze.

But even though Spain’s push did not reach QMV proportions, Albares said: “It’s very clear that there has been a shift … a very clear [EU] dissatisfaction and annoyance at the actions that Israel have taken”.

Dutch foreign minister Tom Berendsen also said: “I can’t say yet which countries are moving [on trade sanctions] … but the concerns are big. I notice that in all countries. The concerns are big about Israel”.

Budapest switch

And in Budapest, the incoming prime minister Péter Magyar has made clear he would arrest Netanyahu if he came to Hungary, in line with a war-crimes warrant from the International Criminal Court in The Hague, signalling an end to unconditional Hungarian support for the Israeli leader.