The European Union (EU) is Israel’s most valuable trading partner and the biggest financial donor to the Palestinian Authority. So why has it appeared to be little more than a bystander during two years of war in Gaza?
Despite having leverage in the region through those economic ties and financial contributions, the EU failed to restrain Israel’s destruction of Gaza and exert real pressure to end the fighting.
It was US president Donald Trump who forced the current ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas militants in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
The EU’s hands remained tied by internal divisions, even as famine spread through Gaza and the numbers of Palestinians killed by Israel’s military campaign exceeded 67,000.
READ MORE
When political leaders and diplomats from the EU’s 27 states discussed the conflict, everyone agreed the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians civilians in Gaza was unacceptable, Israeli hostages held by Hamas should be released and the fighting needed to stop.
There the agreement often ended. Germany and Italy, plus Hungary, Austria, and Czechia have had Israel’s back during the conflict. Those countries argued for the EU to flag its concerns with Israel through normal diplomatic channels and opposed penalising Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government.
Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and Belgium were at the front of the pack pushing for the EU to sanction Israel, at a minimum to get humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza. That second camp has almost come to reflect the position of a majority inside the EU.
[ Gaza ceasefire deal: What happens next with Israel and will Hamas disarm?Opens in new window ]
Israel has certainly been conscious of the momentum building in Brussels in support of concrete action.
The increasing pressure to do something saw European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen last month propose suspending an EU-Israel free trade deal.
Pro-Palestine campaigners and human rights groups criticised the EU’s executive body for taking so long to come to that point.
[ Trump hails ‘historic dawn of a new Middle East’ in Knesset addressOpens in new window ]
The trade sanction would still need the backing of either Germany or Italy to secure a big enough majority to pass.
It is understood German chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni didn’t give any indication about their thinking when EU leaders met for a recent summit in Copenhagen. The proposed suspension of tariff-free trade remains on the table but has been overtaken by new developments.
All the focus has shifted to making sure the tentative truce holds. A previous ceasefire agreed at the start of this year fell apart when Israel resumed its bombing of Gaza.
The new deal means “peace becomes possible for Israel, for Gaza and the region,” French president Emmanuel Macron said on Monday.
António Costa, who chairs the summits of EU leaders, described it as “an important step on the path to peace”. The EU would use “all the tools at its disposal” to help the ceasefire plan stick, the former Portuguese prime minister said.
The agreement between Hamas and Israel means “a page can be turned,” von der Leyen said. “Europe fully supports the peace plan brokered by the United States, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey,” the commission president added.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff separately praised the “vital role” played by the UK in helping to get the peace deal done.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s most senior representative on foreign affairs, said the deal was a “rare moment of hope in the Middle East”, but maintaining the truce would be “extraordinarily complex”.
Should the deal really mark the beginning of the end of the Gaza war, the EU will struggle to shake off the charge that it failed to use its leverage when it counted.
