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The European Union will review its wide-ranging trade and cooperation agreement with Israel over its widened offensive in Gaza and its failure to fully lift a two-month aid blockade.<\/p>\n
The decision came on Tuesday after 17 of the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers backed the move, tabled earlier this month by the Dutch foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp.<\/p>\n
It means the EU executive will now launch a review to establish whether Israel has violated its human rights obligations under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a broad-ranging pact that defines the trading and diplomatic relations between both sides.<\/p>\n
“It is clear from today’s discussions that there is a strong majority in favour of a review of article 2 of our Association Agreement with Israel,” the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, told reporters in Brussels.<\/p>\n
“We will launch this review and in the meantime, it is up to Israel to release more humanitarian aid.”<\/p>\n
Article 2<\/strong><\/a> states that relations “shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this agreement.”<\/p>\n Israel has responded to Kallas\u2019 announcement late on Tuesday. Foreign ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein released a statement on social media platform X, detailing their rejection of the premise of the EU\u2019s decision to review its ties with Israel.<\/p>\n Marmorstein stressed that Israel is in a defensive position in a war \u201cthat was forced upon Israel by Hamas\u201d. It also sought to remind the EU that the Israeli government had accepted numerous US proposals to a ceasefire and hostage exchange deals \u2013 refused by Hamas.<\/p>\n \u201cIgnoring these realities and criticising Israel only hardens Hamas\u2019s position and encourages Hamas to stick to its guns. Hamas\u2019s recent praise for such criticism is a clear indication of this and results in prolonging the war,\u201d said Marmorstein.<\/p>\n The foreign ministry spokesperson also criticised the EU for ignoring recent US and Israeli initiatives to allow the flow of aid into the enclave, while praising other countries who recognise \u201cthis reality\u201d and maintained their support for Israel.<\/p>\n Marmorstein also indicated that Israel remains open to discussion with EU representatives and its member states to resolve the issue, and ended the statement by directing Brussels to exert pressure \u201cwhere it belongs \u2013 on Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n The EU is Israel\u2019s biggest trade partner, with the trading relationship valued at more than \u20ac45 billion a year.<\/p>\n Ireland and Spain first tabled the prospect of re-opening the Association Agreement in a yet-unanswered letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen 15 months ago<\/strong><\/a>, but failed to secure the firm backing of any other EU country.<\/p>\n But the move gained new momentum in recent weeks when the Netherlands, considered a firm ally of Israel, said that Israel’s \u201chumanitarian blockade\u201d on Gaza, where a limited quantity of critical supplies entered for the first time in more than eleven weeks on Monday, is in “violation of international humanitarian law” and therefore of Article 2.<\/p>\n Nine member states \u2014 Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden \u2014 had publicly backed the Netherlands’ proposal ahead of Tuesday’s gathering of foreign ministers.<\/p>\n Denmark, Estonia, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia also backed the review on Tuesday, according to diplomatic sources. Austria, a staunch supporter of Israel, did not take the floor to voice any opposition, another diplomat said.<\/p>\n Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Lithuania were said to be against, while Latvia was “neutral”, the sources also said.<\/p>\n Another proposal to ramp up pressure on Israel by introducing further sanctions on Israeli settlers responsible for violence in the West Bank was backed by 26 of the 27 member states but vetoed by Hungary.<\/p>\n The Swedish foreign minister, Maria Malmer Stenergard, had suggested that she would go further and \u201cpush for EU sanctions against individual Israeli ministers.\u201d<\/p>\n