EU foreign ministers on Tuesday rejected a push to suspend the bloc’s association agreement with Israel following a debate that exposed the bloc’s deep divisions regarding the Middle East.
In the lead-up to the April 21 meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia signed a letter last week to EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas accusing Israel of breaching the agreement that underpins the bloc’s relationship with Israel.
But the ministers ultimately declined to suspend the landmark treaty, with Germany and Italy playing a key role in blocking the proposal.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said the suspension of the agreement would be “inappropriate,” instead advocating “critical, constructive dialogue” with Israel. Austria echoed the sentiment, and Italy — widely seen as the swing vote in the meeting — followed suit, settling the issue definitively.
“There are neither the numerical nor the political conditions,” Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said before the meeting, underscoring Rome’s alignment with Berlin.
The German and Italian-led opposition to the proposal dashed the hopes fostered by leaders in Madrid, Ljubljana and Dublin, who had hoped growing indignation at settler violence in the West Bank, along with new legislation introducing mandatory death penalty sentences for Palestinians, would push Brussels to take action.
“Today Europe is playing for its credibility,” Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said upon arriving at the meeting. “We have to tell Israel clearly that it has to change course.”
Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee similarly called Israel’s conduct “completely unacceptable” and argued the EU needed to be “decisive” and show it was “upholding fundamental values.”
Although the push was ultimately unsuccessful, the calls for action garnered support from additional member countries. “We must be able to act in order to weigh on the debate,” Belgium’s Maxime Prévot said.
A special relationship
Since 2000 the EU–Israel Association Agreement has underpinned political cooperation and trade relations between the two sides.
The text, which grants Israel preferential access to the EU market, includes a human rights clause — Article 2 — making respect for democratic principles an essential part of the deal. That clause is the legal lever that Spain has been pulling for more than two years.
In February 2024, amid Israel’s Gaza campaign, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Ireland’s Leo Varadkar asked the European Commission to review whether the conditions of the agreement were being met. In May 2025, the EU’s diplomatic service launched a review of Israel’s compliance with the text at the request of a majority of the bloc’s member countries.
While Brussels has never floated fully dismantling the agreement, last September it proposed the partial suspension of the deal. Underlining how politically sensitive a full suspension would be, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen suggested the text’s trade-related elements could be shelved.
That scenario was revived ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, with several ministers raising a partial suspension as a viable option.
“There is a whole range of possibilities,” said Spain’s Albares. “If someone wants to put another one on the table, why not?”
Kallas raised the possibility of adopting “measures that require a qualified majority of votes,” among them targeted sanctions or partial measures focused on trade.
Italy’s Tajani explicitly backed that approach. “I believe it is better to sanction individually those responsible, I am thinking of violent settlers,” he said, while expressing skepticism about broader trade measures that he said could hurt ordinary Israelis.
While a common EU position toward Israel remains elusive, the critical tone at the meeting of foreign ministers reflects a significant shift in attitudes within the bloc.
“There is very negative momentum toward the Israeli government,” Maya Sion-Tzidkiyahu of the Israel-based Mitvim Institute think tank told POLITICO.
Still, she added, suspending the landmark agreement remained a step too far.
“This is normative Europe versus geopolitical Europe,” she said. “For the time being, the latter wins.”
Kallas reinforced that point, emphasizing any change would require the unanimous support of all 27 member countries.
“We certainly do not have that on the table anymore,” she said.
EU members reject push to suspend association agreement with Israel
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