{"id":210812,"date":"2025-06-24T16:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T16:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/210812\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T16:20:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T16:20:09","slug":"germanys-merz-rejects-review-of-eu-economic-pact-with-israel-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/210812\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s Merz rejects review of EU economic pact with Israel \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, in a meeting with counterparts earlier this week, also pushed back<\/a> against calls to suspend the agreement, arguing the bloc \u201cneeds good relations with Israel.\u201d That sets Germany on a collision course with other EU countries such as Spain and Ireland, which have called for an immediate suspension of the pact.<\/p>\n

No immediate action is expected after EU foreign ministers discussed Israel on Monday, but the matter is likely to come up when they next meet in July. With no unanimity on suspending the pact entirely, it might be possible to suspend the part of it that covers trade<\/a>, say legal experts, as this would only require backing from a \u201cqualified\u201d majority of EU countries.<\/p>\n

Although Merz has recently criticised Israel\u2019s offensive in the Gaza Strip in unusually strong terms for a German leader<\/a>, Berlin remains one of the country’s staunchest supporters. That position was evident after Israel launched strikes on Iran<\/a>. \u201cThere is no reason for us and also for me personally to criticize<\/a> what Israel started a week ago,\u201d Merz said at an industry summit in Berlin on Monday.<\/p>\n

Merz on Tuesday also called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and for the \u201chumane treatment\u201d of the people there, \u201cespecially the women, the children and the elderly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, in a meeting with counterparts earlier this week, also pushed back against calls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[3971,6215,6659,2000,299,1945,1824,4582,774,678,837,48,811,104,1201],"class_list":{"0":"post-210812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-agriculture","9":"tag-cooperation","10":"tag-crisis","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-friedrich-merz","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-human-rights","16":"tag-iran","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-israel","19":"tag-rights","20":"tag-security","21":"tag-spain","22":"tag-trade"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114739257210386975","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210812","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=210812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}