The EU has opened the door to revising the association agreement with Israel. But sanctions on settlers skip

Brussels – Israel’s allies – from the EU to the UK to a ‘frustrated’ Donald Trump – are increasingly at loggerheads in the face of Tel Aviv’s deliberate crimes against the civilian population in Gaza. Yesterday, the joint stance of France, the UK and Canada against the ‘outrageous actions carried out by the government’ of Benjamin Netanyahu. Today (20 May), more than a year and a half since it was first put on the table,the European Union has decided that it will review the association agreement with Israel.

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, announced this on the sidelines of a meeting with the foreign ministers of the 27. “A strong majority of member states is in favour of revising Article 2 of our association agreement” with Israel – the one that stipulates that relations between Brussels and Tel Aviv must be based on respect for human rights -, said the head of European diplomacy. His predecessor, Josep Borrell, had done so, following up on the request of Spain and Ireland in the face of the silence of the European Commission, only to slam on the resistance of the other capitals.

The Estonian, much more cautious in its criticism of Israeli military operations in Gaza, preferred at first to convene an Association Council to openly discuss it with its Israeli partner, which took place on 20 February 2025. An event that did not bring any results, and indeed only contributed to the EU being perceived as an accomplice of Netanyahu’s extremist government. Now, the strategy changes, and the member states will ‘start this exercise’, hoping that this will be enough to stop Israel.

The Left Group in the European Parliament, the most resolute in denouncing the horrors committed in Gaza, commented bitterly: ‘The whole world has witnessed genocide, right before our eyes, yet it has taken the EU 20 months just to consider action against Israeli war crimes’. Marc Botenga, the group’s coordinator for foreign affairs, reiterated: ‘We need a total arms embargo against Israel and the immediate cancellation of the EU-Israel Association Agreement’.

In reality, for the verification of compliance with human rights obligations to lead to an effective repositioning of the EU vis-à-vis Tel Aviv, the road is long and complicated. For even a partial suspension of the Association Agreement, a unanimous vote is needed. And already today it took only one member state – Hungary, diplomatic sources reveal – to block new sanctions against violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

Sanctions explicitly demanded against ‘some ministers’ in the Netanyahu government by Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenegard. In a message to Afp, she said: ‘Sweden is a friend of Israel, but now we have to raise the tone again. We will fight for European sanctions against some Israeli ministers” who “support an illegal settlement policy and actively oppose a future two-state solution”. The Slovenian counterpart, Tanja Fajon, also announced that Ljubljana ‘is considering, together with France and Ireland, the possibility of imposing sanctions against Israel’.