The European Union has reached an agreement to impose sanctions on violent Israeli settlers, marking an end to a prolonged standstill on the matter. However, some members of the European Parliament consider this a mere “baby step.” Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, emphasized on Monday that “violence and extremism carry consequences,” highlighting the EU’s commitment to addressing these issues.
Despite this development, the EU’s 27 member states have yet to reach a consensus on implementing more severe trade sanctions. France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, announced that the EU is targeting the primary Israeli organizations and their leaders who are responsible for supporting extremist and violent activities in the West Bank. He stressed the urgency of ceasing these “most serious and intolerable acts” in a social media post.
The agreement’s specifics remain undisclosed, but it is known that two extremist Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, are not included in the list. These ministers have been under UK sanctions since last June due to their repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities. The breakthrough in the EU’s decision came after Hungary’s new pro-EU government lifted its veto, a stance that was maintained by the former prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Kallas also mentioned that leading figures of Hamas would face EU sanctions.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, criticized the EU’s decision, accusing it of imposing sanctions on Israeli citizens and entities based on their political views in “an arbitrary and political manner.” The sanctions apply to a limited number of settlers, falling short of the ambitions of some member states. Both France and Sweden have advocated for tariffs on imported goods from illegal settlements, with Sweden’s foreign minister, Maria Malmer Stenergard, describing tariffs as “the most realistic proposal.”
While banning products requires unanimous consent among all EU member states, imposing tariffs can be achieved by a majority vote. Under the existing EU-Israel association agreement, goods from the occupied territories do not benefit from preferential terms, yet trade is not outright prohibited. This agreement underscores the complexity of the EU’s approach to addressing the contentious issue of Israeli settlements in occupied territories.