{"id":263015,"date":"2025-07-14T01:40:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T01:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/263015\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T01:40:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T01:40:13","slug":"exclusive-israel-and-palestine-to-join-high-level-brussels-meeting-despite-tense-eu-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/263015\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Israel and Palestine to join high level Brussels meeting despite tense EU relations\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

The ministers for foreign affairs of Palestine and Israel will be in the same meeting as part of the EU-Southern Neighbourhood ministerial meeting on Monday 14 July in Brussels, diplomats and officials have told Euronews.<\/p>\n

The meeting aims to deepen the EU\u2019s cooperation with Israel as well as nine other southern partners including Syria and Libya.\u00a0It\u2019s the first time both sides will be represented at high level in Brussels since Hamas\u00a0October 7th\u00a0terror attacks and subsequent Israeli military action in Gaza. <\/p>\n

The two sides meet frequently at the United Nations\u00a0but this setting is a more intimate high-level forum, and comes in the week when EU member states are considering taking measures against Israel for its war in Gaza and violence by Israeli Settlers in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials confirmed to Euronews that Gideon Saar and Dr. Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, Israel and the Palestinian Authority\u2019s foreign affairs ministers would participate in the meeting. Syria\u2019s foreign minister from the newly installed government, Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, is also due to attend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like for us as Palestinians to speak for ourselves at this meeting and send a message to Europeans about the humanitarian crisis for Palestinians\u00a0and ask that they take measures against Israel,\u201d a Palestinian official told Euronews. \u201cWe will also explain the deteriorating financial situation for the Palestinian Authority as Israel continues to withhold \u20ac8.2 billion shekels (\u20ac2.1bn) from tax revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to push for elections for Palestinian people and find a political solution to our situation,\u201d the official added.<\/p>\n

The meeting was initially scheduled to take place<\/strong><\/a> in June, but the Commission had to postpone the date due to the situation in Gaza.<\/p>\n

It comes at a time of difficult relations between the EU and Israel following the country\u2019s blockage of food from entering into Gaza\u00a0and after Palestinian health officials and witnesses alleged recent shootings by Israeli soldiers\u00a0of Palestinians\u00a0headed for humanitarian aid sites.<\/p>\n

The EU 27 foreign ministers are also scheduled to\u00a0examine a set of\u00a0ten options on July 15th following a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement which revealed that Tel Aviv had breached the agreement\u2019s Article 2 due to its actions in\u00a0Gaza.<\/p>\n

The proposals, which are listed with their legal basis and the procedure to adopt them, include suspending the \u201centire\u201d EU-Israel Association Agreement, halting political dialogue with Israel, or barring Tel Aviv’s access to EU programs, all of which require unanimity among 27 member states.<\/p>\n

But the Southern neighbourhood ministerial meeting also takes place following the announcement on Thursday that the EU and Israel had agreed<\/strong><\/a> to a\u00a0“significant” improvement of humanitarian aid access into Gaza. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The EU\u2019s Southern Neighbourhood\u00a0partnership derives from the 1995 Barcelona Declaration which committed to turn the Mediterranean into \u201can area of dialogue, exchange and cooperation, guaranteeing peace, stability and prosperity\u201d, according to an official Commission document.<\/p>\n

It\u00a0involves ministers and other representatives from all 27 EU countries\u00a0as well as 11 Arab countries of the Mediterranean including Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Libya.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT The ministers for foreign affairs of Palestine and Israel will be in the same meeting as part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,42649,837,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-263015","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-council","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-kaja-kallas"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114849043419931558","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263015","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=263015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}