No other politician has come to define the European Union’s failure to act on Gaza in the public’s mind as much as Ursula von der Leyen.
For the duration of Israel’s devastating military campaign that has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and seen famine spread among the population, the EU’s hands have been tied by internal divisions.
So it is significant that von der Leyen, head of the European Commission – the EU’s executive arm, which drafts laws – has proposed suspending the “trade-related” elements of the EU’s association agreement with Israel.
“What is happening in Gaza has shaken the conscience of the world. People killed while begging for food. Mothers holding lifeless babies. These images are simply catastrophic,” she told the European Parliament in a speech on Wednesday. “We cannot afford to be paralysed.”
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Von der Leyen proposed a “partial suspension” of the trade elements in the agreement governing the EU’s relations with Israel. Part of that deal gives Israeli products preferential access to the EU market, something that is very valuable to Israel given the EU is one of its largest trading partners.
The finer details of exactly what the commission is proposing to shelve will be important to see.
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Pro-Palestine campaigners will say the intervention comes far too late to save the EU’s credibility on Gaza.
The governments of Ireland, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands have all called for firm action from the EU to sanction Israel and put pressure on Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Those calls were ignored for a long time by the commission.
The political leadership in the Berlaymont has on several occasions sought to duck responsibility, saying this was all a matter for national capitals to decide jointly.
It is in the gift of the commission to propose measures that the EU’s 27 governments can then accept or reject. Von der Leyen, a centre-right German politician, has been repeatedly criticised for failing to table any measures to hold Israel to account.
Her early statements of unqualified support for how Israel planned to respond, in the days after the October 7th, 2023, attacks by Hamas militants in southern Israel, were seen as a misstep and linked her personally to the EU’s later failure to act in the minds of many people.
It is also true that the 27 EU states have been unable to agree on a united response since the start of the war.
The dire warnings about looming famine shifted things somewhat during Israel’s weeks-long blockade stopping food getting into Gaza this spring. That saw momentum from national governments to leverage Israel to reverse the humanitarian catastrophe it was creating in the Palestinian enclave.
Diplomats from Ireland and other states were disappointed earlier this summer when in response von der Leyen’s commission only proposed cutting Israel off from some EU research funding.
The feeling from many in Brussels was that the EU’s executive body had opted for the most modest penalty possible.
However, even that was too extreme for some capitals. The EU remains just short of the weighted majority of states necessary to take action against Israel. Hungary, Austria, Czechia, Germany and Italy have consistently opposed sanctions.
Their argument is that better results can be achieved through quiet diplomacy and behind-the-scenes dialogue with Israel. There is little evidence that has worked.
More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces during almost two years of war, many of them women and children.
Israel shows no signs of restraint and instead is expanding its military campaign further into Gaza city, ordering civilians – who have nowhere else to go – to leave.
The move from von der Leyen to go after EU-Israel trade arrangements is a big step for the commission. It will put pressure on Italy and Germany to lift their opposition to joint EU action, shifting the focus to Berlin and Rome.
