By Jorge Liboreiro
The brutal war between Israel and Hamas is nearing its eighth month, and a rapid succession of recent events has forced the European Union to, once again, rethink its fragile common position.
The cracks showed up after the general prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced he was seeking arrest warrants for Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas and mastermind of the October 7 attacks, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Czech Republic and Hungary angrily denounced the news, while other countries, like Belgium, Denmark and France, defended the court’s impartiality. Germany also called for respect for the ICC but said the filing created a false equivalence between the two sides.
Later, Spain, Ireland and Norway coordinated their recognition of the state of Palestine to inject fresh momentum into the long-stalled peace process. Israel reacted furiously, recalling its ambassadors to the three countries and describing the diplomatic move as a “reward to terrorism.”
Then, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to “immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah,” where 1.5 million people had been sheltering from the war. Not long after the ruling, the Israeli Air Force struck a displacement camp in western Rafah, killing between 45 and 50 people. Netanyahu called the incident a “tragic mistake” but the devastating images from the ground, with parents holding the charred bodies of their dead children, provoked a global outcry.
Against this grim backdrop, EU foreign affairs ministers met this week and agreed to convene an Association Council with Israel to discuss the situation in Gaza and compliance with the ICJ order. Although no date has been set yet, the simple fact that member states decided (“unanimously,” according to Josep Borrell) to call for the meeting is a major leap for the bloc, as this could pave the way for a review of the EU-Israel trade agreement.
“We have to do everything to end the war and to stop this humanitarian catastrophe,” Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, told my colleague Maïa de La Baume in the premiere episode of Radio Schuman, our new daily podcast. “I want to be very clear: on the EU side, we have to avoid the double standards. And sometimes, there could be temptations.”
Since the start of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, the EU has been rebuked for failing to replicate the ironclad unity and hardline stance it mounted against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Despite the ample differences between the two wars, the impression of double standards has stuck in the public imagination and caused discomfort across the Global South – and also within Europe.
“If we want to be a global actor,” Michel went on, “if we want to be influential, if we want to be respected, I think it’s very important to make clear that, always and everywhere, we support the international law, we support the multilateral approach, we support the UN system, and we support the international justice.”
But these intentions can go only so far.
A few days after our interview with Michel, Olivér Várhelyi, the European Commissioner for neighbourhood and enlargement, flew to Jerusalem and met with Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant. The pictures of Várhelyi, who has built a reputation as a go-it-alone envoy, smiling and shaking hands with two men sought by the ICC’s prosecutor raised eyebrows and prompted questions on why that visit had taken place at a time of heightened sensitivities.
“Commissioners do not require prior approval from the president for meetings with external interlocutors,” a spokesperson of the European Commission said in response.
It must be noted that, after his visit to Jerusalem, Várhelyi travelled to the West Bank and met with representatives of the Palestinian Authority to discuss humanitarian support, state reforms and digital transformation. But in politics, optics are a powerful force, more so in our current age of social media where immediacy pays dividends and depth subtracts them. When you see a picture, sometimes you just don’t need to read the statement.
Πηγή: Euronews |
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“Commissioners do not require prior approval from the president for meetings with external interlocutors”
