The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, informed EU member states on Wednesday of his proposal to suspend political dialogue with Israel, diplomatic sources said. This proposal from the head of European diplomacy is based on the human rights provisions of the Association AgreementEU diplomatic sources clarified.
The proposal will be discussed at the Foreign Affairs Councilscheduled for next Monday in Brussels, to see what the Member States think about it. Borrell is thus fulfilling his promise to bring this issue to the last Foreign Affairs Council which he will chair before handing over to the Estonian Kaja Kallas.
According to reports from independent international organizations, there are reasons to consider that Israel violates human rights and international humanitarian lawadded the sources. They stressed that the proposal to suspend political dialogue does not mean the suspension of the association agreement or of the association council. In fact, they added, this could be an issue that could be discussed in the Association Council with Israel.
The proposal now formally puts on the table the debate between Member States on How they perceive Israel’s behavior and whether they think Benjamin Netanyahu’s government could violate human rights and international humanitarian law. At the same time, according to diplomatic sources, this is a “serious political signal” about how the EU perceives the behavior of the Israeli authorities in the face of the war in Gaza and Lebanon.
This step occurs after Borrell notes the impossibility of meeting the Association Council with Israel to listen to the head of diplomacy of this country, as requested by the Foreign Ministers of the Twenty-Seven before last summer.
