{"id":149613,"date":"2026-07-13T04:19:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T04:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/149613\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T04:19:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T04:19:32","slug":"israel-critical-capitals-force-von-der-leyen-showdown-over-illegal-settlements-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/149613\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel-critical capitals force von der Leyen showdown over illegal settlements \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday will stop short of deciding whether to impose tariffs or restrict imports. The immediate question is whether the countries behind the push can secure the majority needed to demand a formal Commission proposal that governments could vote on later.<\/p>\n

Any resulting trade measure would have limited economic impact. Trade with illegal West Bank settlements makes up about 0.5 percent of the EU\u2019s overall trade with Israel, according to the Commission\u2019s estimate in a confidential discussion paper seen by POLITICO<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But, as has become common since Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023 attacks against Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza, the issue ballooned to dominate the foreign ministers\u2019 agenda ahead of Monday\u2019s gathering, overshadowing other subjects, such as a push to finalize a 21st package of sanctions against Russia, or the bloc\u2019s relations with Gulf countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe settlements are illegal,\u201d said Nacho S\u00e1nchez Amor, a Spanish lawmaker on the European Parliament\u2019s foreign affairs committee. \u201cThe best solution is simply to prohibit any import of goods produced in the settlements.\u201d<\/p>\n

The German-led Commission has resisted proposing new trade measures against the settlements, arguing that similar proposals have previously been tabled and rejected<\/a>. The EU executive is flanked by Prague as well as Berlin, which intends to veto or abstain on any vote concerning tariffs on Israel, according to a senior EU diplomat familiar with Berlin\u2019s thinking.<\/p>\n

Kallas, who is due to preside over Monday\u2019s meeting, has publicly urged the Commission to come up with new trade measures. The top diplomat is currently locked in a dispute with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar over reports she used the word \u201capartheid\u201d to describe the Israeli state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday will stop short of deciding whether to impose tariffs or restrict…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[137],"tags":[466,5816,1427,4568,1065,10609,243,303,329,1434,932,2289,305,3437,1745,330,403],"class_list":["post-149613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-banks","tag-belgium","tag-cooperation","tag-dubravka-suica","tag-elections","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-russia","tag-sanctions","tag-security","tag-services","tag-spain","tag-the-netherlands","tag-trade","tag-ukraine","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116910749572968819","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}