EU council President Antonio Costa welcomes moves against Israel
Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, has welcomed measures proposed by the European Commission to member states that include sanctions on Israeli ministers and a removal of Israel’s preferential trade partner status.
In a post on X, Costa said: “These measures are not aimed at the Israeli people. Their purpose is to demonstrate that Europe cannot accept the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza and the West Bank, which have gone far beyond Israel’s legitimate right to self-defence.”
It is now up to EU member states to decide in a vote, with 17 of 25 countries needing to back the measures for implementation.
Israeli export leader responds to EU proposed sanctions
Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin, chair of the Israel Export Institute, says proposed EU sanctions are “very difficult” but the country will recover if the measures are implemented.
“When there are interests, there are also corners cut,” Nahmias-Verbin told local media.
The European Commission has presented a measure to suspend its trade concessions on Israeli exports worth nearly $6.87bn because of Israel’s war on Gaza. However, the proposal reportedly does not have enough support among the EU’s 27 nations to pass.
Very difficult? lol. Trump's tarifs are far more difficult for most of the world...
EU’s tariff plan on Israeli goods does ‘too little, too late’
We’ve spoken to Mohamad Elmasry, a professor of media studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, about the European proposals against Israel that were announced on Wednesday.
Describing the proposed measures as “too late” and “far too little”, Elmasry said the genocide convention places a duty on states “to act swiftly and punish genocide when it is taking place”.
“First of all, the idea that they’re not out to punish Israel, why do they have to go out of their way to say that?” he asked, referring to a statement by the European Commission.
“All they are proposing to do is to put a tariff on about 37 percent of Israeli exports; 63 percent would remain untouched,” Elmasry told Al Jazeera. “I could think of about a dozen things that they could do that would be much more effective at ending the genocide very, very quickly.”
