Germany and the Czech Republic are blocking all sanctions on Israel, while Italy sits on the fence, even though EU leaders will repeatedly “condemn” Israeli aggression at next week’s summit.

The German and Czech ambassadors told the other 25 at a meeting of the ‘Political and Security Committee’ in the EU Council in Brussels on Tuesday (9 June) that they were against blacklisting an extremist Israeli minister or banning trade with West Bank settlers, according to diplomatic sources.

The German and Czech EU embassies declined to confirm or deny the information.

This meant there would be no visa ban on Israeli security minister Itmar Ben-Gvir, which needed EU27 consensus, despite his personal brutality toward EU nationals on an aid flotilla to Gaza in May.

And Slovenia’s new pro-Israeli prime minister, populist Janez Janša, would probably veto too, based on his X posts.

France and some 10 other EU states were also pushing to ban EU imports from settlers, which could most likely be done by a qualified majority vote (QMV), and which would only be attained if Italy got on board.

But Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni declined to take a clear position either way when she spoke in parliament on Thursday about her EU summit plans.

“We are … awaiting the European Commission’s proposals on possible restrictions on products from settlements, which we will evaluate on their merits, including from a technical and legal perspective,” she said.

But, speaking more generally, she said the EU should not be too harsh on Israel.

“I don’t believe that isolating Israel can be a European objective or strategy. Israel’s isolation is a dangerous phenomenon … [it] ends up strengthening the most extremist positions both within Israel and among Israel’s enemies,” she said.

The official commission “proposals” on the settler-import ban have been long in coming, not least due to internal inertia from EU officials.

In a show of friendly ties on Monday, for instance, Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar spoke by video at a ‘High Level Seminar to combat antisemitism and foster Jewish life’ in the commission Brussels.

An Israeli foreign ministry official in charge of “public diplomacy”, Yacov Livne, joined the seminar in person, as did an EU official in charge of combatting antisemitism, Katharina von Schnurbein.

Sa’ar, Livne, and von Schnurbein have all previously said any EU sanctions would be “antisemitic”.