{"id":215380,"date":"2025-09-10T11:36:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T11:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/215380\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T11:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T11:36:11","slug":"von-der-leyen-vows-to-punish-israels-extremist-ministers-and-pause-payments-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/215380\/","title":{"rendered":"Von der Leyen vows to punish Israel\u2019s \u2018extremist ministers\u2019 and pause payments \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Largest trading partner<\/p>\n

The announcement that the EU will sanction key Israeli officials and settlers drew applause and heckles from across the chamber.<\/p>\n

Many lawmakers, some of whom were wearing red in solidarity with Gaza, welcomed the announcement. But it sparked uproar on the right-hand side of the chamber where some members, including from Germany\u2019s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), shouted interruptions, prompting attendants and MEPs to tell them to be quiet.<\/p>\n

The EU is\u00a0Israel\u2019s largest trading partner<\/a>, accounting for 32 percent of its total trade in 2024, so any possible suspension will have a major effect on the Israeli economy. The EU exports machinery and transport equipment, chemicals and other manufactured goods to Israel, with total exports amounting to \u20ac26.7 billion in 2024.<\/p>\n

In long, behind-closed-doors negotiations between the main political groups ahead of von der Leyen\u2019s speech, the Parliament failed to agree on a joint stance on Gaza. Von der Leyen\u2019s center-right European People\u2019s Party (EPP) walked out of a deal as they disagreed with the content of the final text, which means the resolution will not pass Thursday\u2019s vote, three officials, granted anonymity to speak freely, said.<\/p>\n

The toughened stance of the Commission president\u2019s speech, however, has opened hopes among center-left political groups that the EPP will change course to reflect von der Leyen, their highest-ranking member.<\/p>\n

\u201cI continue to receive mixed signals from the EPP regarding their support for the Gaza resolution,\u201d liberal Renew lawmaker Hilde Vautmans, negotiating the Gaza resolution, told POLITICO. \u201cBut this morning, there was a clear shift in Commission President Ursula von der Leyen\u2019s position by proposing sanctions on Israel and the suspension of the trade pillar of the EU\u2013Israel Association Agreement. She has set a new and important direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope this momentum will positively influence EPP support for the resolution,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

A suspension of the trade aspects of the association agreement with Israel would not amount to targeted sanctions or an EU-wide arms embargo \u2014 steps that civil society and some member countries have also called for to exert economic pressure on Israel \u2014 but would instead reimpose tariffs.<\/p>\n

Still, reaching the necessary qualified majority to suspend that wouldn\u2019t be easy. While a majority of countries\u00a0voted in favor of reviewing the EU\u2019s association agreement with Israel, that doesn\u2019t mean all of them will vote in favor of suspending its trade part. The Commission\u2019s previous proposal to suspend the country\u2019s participation in the research and innovation fund Horizon did not gather enough support among member countries. Large critical countries\u00a0\u2014 such as Italy and Germany \u2014 would need to support the suspension. And close Israel allies such as Hungary, Czechia, Austria and Poland are also unlikely to waver in their support.<\/p>\n

This article has been updated. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Largest trading partner The announcement that the EU will sanction key Israeli officials and settlers drew applause and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":215381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[110,11230,115,117761,264,117,14446,2850,99,2219,27811,2852,50,2853,816,123,1183,125,126,117762,2175,130,6187,2856],"class_list":{"0":"post-215380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-austria","9":"tag-chemicals","10":"tag-crisis","11":"tag-eu-state-of-the-union","12":"tag-exports","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-holocaust","15":"tag-hungary","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-italy","18":"tag-meps","19":"tag-negotiations","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-parliament","22":"tag-payments","23":"tag-poland","24":"tag-research","25":"tag-rights","26":"tag-sanctions","27":"tag-state-of-the-union","28":"tag-tariffs","29":"tag-trade","30":"tag-transport","31":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115179800837665154","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}