{"id":140526,"date":"2025-05-29T04:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T04:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/140526\/"},"modified":"2025-05-29T04:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T04:49:08","slug":"the-eu-needs-to-grow-a-bit-of-backbone-and-stand-up-to-israel-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/140526\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU needs to \u2018grow a bit of backbone\u2019 and stand up to Israel \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summits of the EU<\/a>\u2018s 27 national leaders take place every few months and usually kick off on a Thursday. When Leo Varadkar<\/a> was attending as taoiseach he was always happier when they started earlier in the week. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great on the rare occasion that you had to be away on a Tuesday or Wednesday, because then you got to avoid Leaders\u2019 Questions [in the D\u00e1il],\u201d the former Fine Gael<\/a> leader tells me. <\/p>\n

Very few heads of government take questions from the Opposition \u201ctwice a week for several hours\u201d, he says. \u201cIt\u2019s mostly just theatre, I didn\u2019t particularly like it.\u201d <\/p>\n

More than a year on from his political exit, Varadkar sat down to chat about European politics. We spoke last week, the day after the European Union agreed to a review of its trade agreement with Israel<\/a>, following growing concern over the war in Gaza<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This review was something that Varadkar and Spanish prime minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez<\/a> first called for in February 2024. At the time they were ignored. <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel more angry than vindicated, because Pedro and I went out on a limb on that and we had very few supporters at the time,\u201d Varadkar says. It was depressing that so many Palestinians had to be killed before other European governments came around to Ireland\u2019s position, he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe time has come for the European Union to grow a bit of backbone. I hope this is the start of it.\u201d <\/p>\n

The EU-Israel association agreement, which includes a free trade deal, is seen as a key piece of leverage with which to exert pressure on Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu<\/a>\u2018s government. <\/p>\n

The EU should suspend the accord even if a fresh ceasefire is negotiated between Israel and Hamas militants, according to Varadkar. Israel portrays itself as a western liberal democracy, but is \u201cnone of those things\u201d, the former Fine Gael leader says. <\/p>\n

Varadkar feels European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen<\/a> gets too hard a time in Ireland over the misstep she made in the days after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7th, 2023. Comments by the German politician were seen as offering unqualified support for how Israel saw fit to respond. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Leo Varadkar has more to offer than reality TV shows or doling out PR advice to mega-rich clientsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to her about it and I told her: \u2018This isn\u2019t going to go down well in large parts of Europe\u2019,\u201d Varadkar recalls. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think since then she\u2019s been much more circumspect and careful … She\u2019s a friend of Ireland, and Ireland has done well by the position she\u2019s taken on Brexit<\/a>,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Brexit comes up several times. The negotiations to sort out the UK\u2019s exit from the EU were a big part of Varadkar\u2019s first term as taoiseach. <\/p>\n

It influenced a lot of his thinking during summits of EU leaders, including how he handled Hungary\u2019s far-right prime minister Viktor Orban<\/a> and Poland\u2019s then-hard-right government. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was an attempt by the British to seek support from Poland and Hungary … I was kind of limited in my scope for righteousness, given that I needed Hungary and Poland not to be a problem on Brexit, and they weren\u2019t,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s it like inside the room during those summits? \u201cIt\u2019s just you in there, there\u2019s no officials,\u201d Varadkar says. Leaders still message their entourage of advisers and officials waiting outside the room, though sometimes mobile phones have to stay outside as well. <\/p>\n

The legwork to tee up a policy shift is done by diplomats in the weeks leading up to a summit. \u201cThe good thing is that it\u2019s often just the big decisions and the final calls that are left to the leaders,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Varadkar: marriage-equality vote result and hospice opening made my best day in politicsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The need to unanimously agree on foreign policy decisions means one rogue leader \u2013 such as Orban \u2013 can hold everything up. The Hungarian leader has repeatedly used this veto power to block financial and military support for Kyiv in the Ukraine war. <\/p>\n

Varadkar does not believe the solution is to just take more decisions by majority vote. \u201cMaybe make it so that one country can\u2019t block something, or two countries can\u2019t block something,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking in the cafe of the Sofitel, a five-star Brussels hotel down the road from the EU institutions. National leaders in the European People\u2019s Party (EPP)<\/a>, the centre-right grouping that includes Fine Gael, all breakfast here on the morning of a summit. <\/p>\n

Varadkar, who stepped down as taoiseach in April last year, says these European political groupings are much more influential than many people realise, even politicians in his own party.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time people talked about Fine Gael becoming too liberal or too left-leaning for the EPP, I took a very contrary view. This is the most influential group, the biggest bloc, it\u2019s good for Fine Gael and good for Ireland to be in it,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to tell whether Varadkar secretly misses being in the thick of it all. He definitely doesn\u2019t miss Leaders\u2019 Questions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summits of the EU\u2018s 27 national leaders take place every few months and usually kick off on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,35567,1699,60970,10982,20418,60969,5338,1220],"class_list":{"0":"post-140526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-peoples-party","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-fine-gael","14":"tag-gaza-strip","15":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","16":"tag-leo-varadkar","17":"tag-pedro-sanchez","18":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114589320047088246","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}