‘The EU is 60,000 Palestinian lives too late,’ says HRW expert
The EU has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the unconditional release of captives, but it has chosen not to impose sanctions or suspend its trade agreement with Israel.
At a summit this week in Brussels, member states discussed an EU report that found Israel was likely violating its human rights obligations under the EU-Israel Association agreement, which governs its trade ties with the bloc. Rather than imposing sanctions, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said, “We will contact Israel to present our findings and look at how we can improve the situation on the ground.”
Such communications, however, are failing to make an impact, according to Claudio Francavilla, the associate EU director at Human Rights Watch. “The truth is that they’ve been contacting the Israeli authorities for about 21 months now, and clearly, that hasn’t worked,” he told Al Jazeera from Brussels.
“There must be a place, a time when people realise that dialogue alone is not working and … has completely failed. If anything, the EU is about 60,000 lives too late in trying to move beyond the dialogue. People are being killed every day before our eyes.”
The question now, said Francavilla, is at what point the EU will stop with the dialogue and start using “non-verbal forms of communication, such as the suspension of the association agreement”.
Inaction on Gaza is anti-Palestinian, not pro-Israel: HRW
EU leaders have decided not to take action against Israel over its war on Gaza, despite a recent report finding that Israel may have breached its human rights obligations under the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
Who’s driving EU policy on Israel? “It’s not one single country, it’s certainly a bloc,” said Claudio Francavilla, associate EU director at Human Rights Watch (HRW).
According to Francavilla, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Italy are the main countries preventing EU action on Israel. They consider themselves “pro-Israel”, but “what they’re doing is not pro-Israel, it’s anti-Palestinian, it’s anti-international law, it’s anti-human rights,” he said.
Some countries are trying to do more, Francavilla told Al Jazeera, citing Spain, Slovenia, Ireland, Luxembourg and Belgium. “This is not enough,” he said. “The EU is a bit of a victim of its own architecture when it comes to foreign policy.”
While most EU foreign policy measures must be adopted unanimously by member states, some do not, including trade measures. Francavilla said the EU could suspend the Association Agreement and ban trade with settlements by a qualified majority vote, noting that it’s important to continue pressuring the five countries blocking EU action to allow for such a vote.
