In October 2024, the US gave Israel 30 days to improve humanitarian aid access to Gaza or risk having some US military assistance cut off. Not only was there no improvement, but the volume of aid decreased during this period.
And yet, Israel faced no consequences. At a time when Israel does not even feel the need to respond to the minimal demands of the US, its main diplomatic and military supporter, there is no reason to believe the country’s leaders are concerned about European politicians criticising it.
Still, with the renewal of the European Commission at the end of this month, the Israeli government will be happy to see EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell depart the scene. After all, Borrell represented one of the few voices in top European political positions calling for decisive action to stop Israel’s war on Gaza.
A year of clashes in the EU
During the last year, Borrell often clashed with the EU member states that are more supportive of Israel (such as Germany, Austria, Hungary, or the Czech Republic). President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who will soon start her second mandate, usually aligned herself with this group of countries. The latest episode in this series of internal clashes occurred last week during the last meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers headed by Borrell.
The core of the dispute was not new. In February, Ireland and Spain requested that the European Commission review the EU–Israel Association Agreement and determine whether Israel was complying with its obligations. The suspension of the agreement, which contains a human rights clause, would have significant consequences for Tel Aviv. The bilateral framework provides the Israeli economy with privileged access to the EU market, the destination of around 30% of its exports.
More than nine months have passed since Ireland and Spain demanded a review of the association agreement. Last month, Spanish President Pedro Sánchez asked for a response to the petition to suspend the agreement “if it is established, as everything suggests, that human rights are being violated”. However, there has been no response from von der Leyen’s Commission.
This is the context in which Borrell last week brought a proposal to the EU foreign affairs ministers that he knew would be rejected. The Spanish diplomat suggested the EU should halt its institutional political dialogue with Israel to apply pressure on the country to comply with international law. This would have been a milder measure than the suspension of the association agreement, but one that did not need the Commission acting on the petition by Ireland and Spain.
Borrell’s proposal was rejected, as was his plan to ban the import of products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Many European diplomats considered Borrell to have forced an unnecessarily tense situation. Some sources even suggested that Borrell only wanted to cultivate his own personal image before leaving the position of EU foreign policy chief. It is far more likely that what motivated Borrell was simply an increasing frustration with the EU’s inaction regarding Israel’s war on Gaza.
As he recently noted in his personal blog, so far, “Israel has been spared from any meaningful consequences”. The principle of unanimity for major foreign policy decisions in the EU, together with the profound internal divisions on how to deal with Israel, are responsible for this failure to act. In front of this inactivity, some EU countries have taken independent steps. In May, Ireland, Spain, and Slovenia recognised Palestine as a state, together with Norway, which is not an EU member.
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A change of guard in EU diplomacy
Borrell will soon be replaced as EU foreign policy chief by Kaja Kallas, the former prime minister of Estonia. Regarding the Ukraine war, there will not probably be significant differences between Borrell and Kallas. In the hotly debated topic of whether EU members should allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia with the weapons they provide, both Borrell and Kallas favour these strikes.
However, Borrell and Kallas do not see eye to eye when it comes to the Middle East. Hugh Lovatt, an expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, noted that he expects Kallas “to be less focused on Gaza and less proactive in pushing member states to take action”.
Borrell has often expressed his concern that the EU is facilitating accusations of double standards because it strongly condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but is undecisive in responding to Israel’s war on Gaza. Kallas, meanwhile, does not appear to believe these accusations are well-grounded. During her confirmation hearing at the European Parliament, Kallas had to answer the questions of parliamentarians who pointed out that the EU’s defence of human rights and international law is not consistently applied in both Ukraine and Gaza.
After a parliamentarian asked Kallas how she planned to face this incongruence, she countered accusations of double standards by noting that the EU is “the biggest donor of the Palestinian Authority”. She added that “we are the biggest donor to helping the Palestinian people in that region and we try to continue to do so”.
These statements ignore at least two things. First, support for the Palestinian Authority (PA) hardly matters in a discussion about double standards. The PA has no political power in Gaza since the Hamas takeover in 2007. Second, the abysmal humanitarian situation in Gaza has little to do with a lack of funds for humanitarian aid.
The problem, instead, is Israel’s ongoing military operations and the systematic denial of humanitarian aid in Gaza that could alleviate the suffering of its citizens. The small quantities of aid that are allowed into Gaza by the Israeli authorities are increasingly looted by armed gangs in front of the passivity, if not complicity, of Israeli soldiers.
It is not aid, but political will to apply leverage on Israel, that could have an impact on Tel Aviv. So far, at least 44,056 Gazans have been killed and 104,268 have been wounded since 7 October 2023, when Hamas attacked southern Israel killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. The number of indirect deaths in Gaza as a result of the conflict and lack of humanitarian aid will probably be higher than violent deaths.
A lack of political will in Europe
The necessary political will to pressure Israel to change course is nowhere to be seen in many European capitals. This was once again manifest last week when the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif – who is presumed dead. The ICC accuses the three men of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
All EU countries are parties to the ICC and therefore, bound by the court’s decisions. However, EU heavyweights such as France, Italy, and Germany (the second largest provider of weapons to Israel after the US) did not openly commit themselves to arresting Netanyahu and Gallant if they set foot in their countries. Viktor Orban’s Hungary, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, went one step further and invited Netanyahu to visit the country as soon as he wished.
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In September, before any ceasefire in Gaza could materialise, the conflict expanded to Lebanon, where 3,544 people have been killed and more than 15,000 injured. Hezbollah and the Israeli army had been exchanging fire for almost one year before Israel decided to invade Lebanon’s south and conduct intensive aerial bombardments across the country.
Sixteen EU countries contribute troops to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), stationed in southern Lebanon. Some of these troops have been wounded in Israeli attacks, which motivated criticism by some EU countries (such as Austria and Slovakia) that had been among the less vocal in condemning Israel for its war on Gaza. But as long as Israel avoids casualties among European troops, Tel Aviv should be relatively safe from any meaningful European actions to stop the Israeli incursion into Lebanon.
France, which had traditionally been an influential actor in Lebanon as the former colonial power, has been relegated from mediation efforts as it does not have powerful interlocutors in the Israeli government and Hezbollah. France has been losing ground in the country for some time now, and the situation is further complicated by President Emmanuel Macron’s weak internal position and the inexperience of the current foreign minister, who has been in the job for only two months.
The EU’s inconsistent approach to the Middle East
Last year, under the leadership of von der Leyen, the EU engaged in a new round of deals to externalise migration control. Between July 2023 and May 2024, the EU reached a series of agreements with Tunisia, Mauritania, Egypt, and Lebanon in which these countries receive EU funds in exchange for halting migrants and asylum seekers in their way to Europe.
Natalie Tocci, director of the Italian think tank Istituto Affari Internazionali, notes how, when it comes to the global south, Europe views “much of the world as nothing but a source of unwanted migrants to be kept out”. In the case of Tunisia, for instance, EU-funded guards have allegedly been raping migrant women and beating children.
Meanwhile, the agreement with Lebanon, signed only six months ago, provided the country with around €736 million to care for its refugee population (most of which is Syrian) and improve border and migration control. Such an agreement, however, requires a modicum of internal stability to be implemented.
The Lebanese government estimates that over one million people in Lebanon have been displaced by the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon and the airstrikes across the country. Close to 500,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into Syria, in a sign of their desperation. As long as Lebanon continues to be ravaged by war, it will produce refugees of its own and can hardly be in a position to act as the EU’s policeman.
Europe’s double standards
In the new European Parliament elected in June 2024, the centre-right and the far-right hold a majority that they have already used in some votes. The move to the right has also found its way into the composition of the new European Commission. Some far-right parties, especially the Brothers of Italy, the party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, have been accepted into the European mainstream by supporting Ukraine’s war effort. The EU is increasingly looking inwards and becoming more militarised with the appointment of the first defence commissioner.
The EU might want to keep migrants and refugees away through migration control agreements, ignore the plight of Palestinians and Lebanese civilians, and all the while continue to emphasise the need to support Ukraine and isolate Russia. But this will simply not work.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EU asked political leaders in the global south to apply sanctions against Russia. This was normally something they would not want to do, arguing that the conflict was a European war and that adopting sanctions would hurt them economically at a time of rising food and energy prices.
These days, global south leaders do not have the need to elaborate their argument. They can simply ask why they should adopt sanctions against Russia when the EU does not take the same course of action with Israel.
Marc Martorell Junyent is a graduate of International Relations and holds an MA in Comparative and Middle East Politics and Society from the University of Tübingen (Germany). He has been published in the London School of Economics Middle East Blog, Middle East Monitor, Inside Arabia, Responsible Statecraft and Global Policy.
Follow him on Twitter: @MarcMartorell3
