{"id":200676,"date":"2025-06-20T19:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T19:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/200676\/"},"modified":"2025-06-20T19:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T19:41:11","slug":"germans-italians-support-arms-ban-on-israel-poll-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/200676\/","title":{"rendered":"Germans, Italians support arms ban on Israel, poll shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

An opinion poll suggests that a majority of Germans and Italians strongly support halting arms sales to Israel if humanitarian law is not upheld in Gaza. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The research carried out by advocacy group Eko also reveals that citizens of the two countries believe the\u00a0EU-Israel Association Agreement\u00a0<\/a>should be suspended if Israel fails to uphold human rights and democratic principles, as required under Article 2 of the agreement, News.Az<\/a> reports citing foreign media.<\/a><\/p>\n

The poll was taken ahead of Monday\u2019s EU Foreign Affairs Council, where ministers will debate the EU-Israel Association Agreement.<\/p>\n

A review of Israel’s actions in Gaza found it may have breached the agreement, according to a leaked document seen by Politico.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the basis of the assessments made by the independent international institutions \u2026 there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement,\u201d the European External Action Service concluded.<\/p>\n

According to the new poll, about 74 per cent of Germans and 92 per cent of Italians support ending arms exports to Israel if it doesn’t respect humanitarian law. German\u00a0arms exports to Israel<\/a>\u00a0include engines for the Merkava tank, although these appear to have slowed down.<\/p>\n

Similarly, 77 per cent of Germans and 89 per cent of Italians believe the EU-Israel Association Agreement should be suspended. Both the final results exclude those who didn\u2019t express an opinion.<\/p>\n

Suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement requires a qualified majority vote among EU member states. Eko says that means the support of major countries like Germany and Italy is essential if that is to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor months we\u2019ve called on the EU to use its power to stop this horror,\u201d said Eoin Dubsky, senior campaigner at Eko.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now have the people, the momentum, and the legal justification to act. Suspending the trade deal and arms sales isn\u2019t just a political option – it\u2019s a legal and moral obligation.\u201d<\/p>\n

An initial request\u00a0filed by Ireland and Spain<\/a>\u00a0in February 2024 to review the agreement was ignored by the EU Commission \u2013 the EU’s executive arm.<\/p>\n

But a recent call for a review filed by the Netherlands and sparked by Israel’s blockade of aid into Gaza has gained momentum. The Dutch initiative has been supported by Finland, Portugal, Sweden and France.<\/p>\n

After the US, Germany was once the second-biggest supplier of arms sales to\u00a0Israel<\/a>\u00a0and sold it $354.4 million worth of equipment last year, a ten-fold increase from 2022.<\/p>\n

But this has dwindled since the early weeks of the\u00a0war\u00a0<\/a>in\u00a0Gaza\u00a0<\/a>and the latest figures show sales to Israel do not feature in the top 10 importers of German hardware.<\/p>\n

In response to a recent parliamentary question last year, the ministry revealed only $16 million worth of exports were approved from January to August, with only $35,812 in actual weapons for fighting.<\/p>\n

News.Az<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An opinion poll suggests that a majority of Germans and Italians strongly support halting arms sales to Israel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[81073,2000,299,1824,837,2199],"class_list":{"0":"post-200676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-arms-ban","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-italy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114717398882955984","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200676","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=200676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}