Suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement: the first of two objectives required to prompt the Commission to address the issue has been achieved

Brussels – There are already nearly 600,000 signatures from European citizens calling on the European Commission to consider the “complete suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement in light of Israel’s human rights violations.” 

The Commission’s counter is ticking up rapidly, but a first milestone has already been reached: the seven countries in which the “minimum threshold” set by the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), the instrument introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon (signed on 13 December 2007 and entered into force on 1 December 2009), which allows one million citizens from at least seven Member States to compel the European Commission to consider introducing legislative initiatives. The European Commission is not obliged to propose a legislative initiative, but it is obliged, in any case, to discuss the issue and to make its decisions public. 

At the time of writing, over 591,000 signatures (with the signatories’ details) have been collected, so the target the organisers of “Justice for Palestine” are working towards is drawing closer, but one has already been achieved: the minimum thresholds have been exceeded in no fewer than nine countries, with France setting the record by exceeding 477 per cent of the signatures required in that country. Even in Italy, the threshold has been surpassed, with a more modest but respectable 129 per cent. 

Below are the figures provided by the European Commission:

 The S&D Group of Social Democrats in the European Parliament has joined the call. “The Israeli government’s decision to reintroduce the death penalty represents yet another serious mistake by a dangerous and irresponsible right-wing government. As the S&D Group in the European Parliament, we are calling for the immediate suspension of the EU-Israel agreement,” announced Nicola Zingaretti, head of the PD delegation to the European Parliament, in a statement.