Government briefs pro-Palestine EU allies on Occupied Territories Bill

Senior Government figures have briefed the governments of other EU member states about the new Irish legislation which would ban trade in goods with the occupied Palestinian territories.

As frustrations rise among some EU countries at this week’s EU summit in Brussels about the bloc’s inability to take a strong position on Gaza, there has been growing interest among member states sympathetic to the Palestinians.

Senior Irish Government sources confirmed there has been significant recent interest from other countries, seeking to know more about the Occupied Territories Bill. The Government this week published a summary of the intended Bill, which is due to be discussed at the Oireachtas foreign affairs committee in the coming weeks but will probably not become law until the autumn.

The Bill would ban trade in goods – but not services – with businesses based in the occupied Palestinian territories.

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One senior source said there had been “a lot of contacts” from countries “who share our view”.

It is understood they wish to understand the “narrow legal pathway” the Government has identified that would make such a move permissible under EU law.

Restricting trade from occupied Palestinian territories on an EU-wide basis has also come on to the radar of several capitals recently.

Earlier this month the foreign ministers of Belgium, Spain, Finland, Luxembourg, Ireland and four others raised the matter with the European Commission, the EU executive led by Ursula von der Leyen that sets trade policy. The group asked the commission to examine whether the union should “discontinue” trade with illegal Israeli settlements.

During the summit Slovenia raised the idea of “like-minded” countries taking action against Israel outside of EU channels, if the bloc still could not agree on measures.

Spain’s left-wing prime minister Pedro Sánchez said the EU’s failure to suspend its trade deal with Israel pointed to a “double standard”, given the extensive economic sanctions put on Russia after it invaded Ukraine.

It is understood Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu was lobbying some EU leaders on the eve of the summit, putting in calls to traditional allies, such as Austria.

Meanwhile, in the Dáil Tánaiste Simon Harris called on Opposition party leaders to ask their political counterparts in the EU to draw up their own Occupied Territories legislation.

Mr Harris said “we’re the only Government in the entire European Union that has published any legislation ever in relation to banning trade with the occupied Palestinian territories”.

“I’d be very, very grateful if every member of the Opposition in a leadership position would ... pick up the telephone and contact your political counterparts in the European Union and ask them: where’s their Occupied Palestinian Territories Bill? When are they publishing it?”

He was responding to renewed criticism over the failure to include services in the Bill, which bans trade with Israeli settlements in the territories.

Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger said the exclusion meant the legislation “doesn’t have even half the power of the original Bill”, introduced in 2018 by Independent Senator Frances Black.

She said the legislation would only affect “a fraction” of the EU’s €3.2 billion trade with Israel and that the International Court of Justice makes no distinction between goods and services.

Mr Harris said they would “tease through” the legal issues in relation to services “and if we can make progress in relation to that, that’s exactly what we intend to do”.

But “we need other countries to move” and if TDs wanted to help save lives in Gaza “we need to call on other EU member states to join us and bring forward their own legislation and stop waiting for EU unanimity.”