The Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Defence, Helen McEntee, warned, on Wednesday 1 July that the EU’s credibility was “very much at stake” over the situation in the Middle East.
“We need to be responding more effectively to what has been a persistent and very clear direction from the Israeli government”, she explained to a group of European journalists, including Agence Europe, in Dublin for the opening of the Irish Presidency of the EU Council. Ahead of the Foreign Affairs Council on 13 July, the European Commission must present options for measures concerning illegal Israeli settlements.
“It is a really important moment for us not just to discuss and to debate it (banning trade with the settlements) but (...) that we would be able to have a vote on that matter as soon as possible. We can talk about it indefinitely, but without a decision and without a vote, we will get nowhere”, she warned, adding that the objective was to change behaviour. While some Member States are said to favour measures - a total ban on products from the settlements or additional customs duties - it is not certain that any measure would secure the qualified majority needed for adoption.
For several months, Ireland has been arguing that the EU should adopt stronger measures in response to the “man-made humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza, but now also to the situation in Lebanon, “where dozens of villages and towns have been razed, with no hope of their inhabitants returning”, and in the West Bank. “What we are seeing today in Lebanon and the West Bank is an increase in occupied territories and satellite violence, with a clear ambition to go even further”, the Minister warned.
Thus, according to Helen McEntee, if Europeans are convinced that the only path to lasting peace in the region is a two-state solution, “then the only way that we can continue that vision and that ambition is by acting now”.
Earlier in the day, at a press conference with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, the European Council President, António Costa, praised Ireland’s commitment to strengthening the European Union’s role as a principled global actor, as well as its unwavering support for the United Nations, multilateralism and respect for international law. “These principles are at the heart of what we must defend more than ever, and Ireland has always been at the forefront of that effort. They must guide our action for peace and security in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iran, the Strait of Hormuz and the wider Middle East”, he said. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant with Mathieu Bion)