In an interview with Euronows, Kaja Kallas, the EU Foreign Ministry’s High Representative, confirmed his strategy to suspend trade-related provisions within the Israeli-EU Association agreement.
The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner. “We’ve traded 42.6 billion euros with Israel in 2024. So that’s a fair amount. And when it comes to priority treatments, 37% of that trade really has priority treatments.
However, it is up to EU member states to decide whether the measure will pass, and so far, some member states have continually blocked efforts to sanction Israel due to voting requirements.
Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria have decisively prevented the EU from dealing with Israel’s violations of international law, including violations of Article 2 of the EU-US Association Agreement.
“This issue must be agreed between qualified member states. That is, at least one of the larger countries, Germany or Italy, must support their bids to succeed,” she said.
Karas says that if Germany and other countries are willing to fall behind EU-led submissions such as trade sanctions to put pressure on Israel, they should come up with their own plans. “If we don’t support these measures, what measures can we support?” she told Euronows’ European conversation. “Have an alternative,” she said.
“At the same time, Germany took a step towards stopping the delivery of weapons to Israel. This was an important step from Germany’s side, and it was difficult for them, given their public opinion,” she said.
“Putin is just chuckling.”
In Ukraine, the EU’s HRVP (Vice President of the High Representative) said, “Putin is “just laughing” at all his recent efforts to end the war by the US.
“When we think about the meeting in Alaska, what happened afterwards was Putin’s increased attacks, the biggest attack ever on Ukraine and now an invasion on Poland.
The crows also warned the sowing sector by “testing” the West of the EU countries to reduce support in Ukraine.
“Putin is clearly testing the West, how far can he go?
“What we need to keep in mind is that the government wants to refrain from supporting Ukraine because Putin wants to have a fear within our society.
Read the interview with Shona Murray from Euronows below and take a look at the full version with the players above.
Q. Currently, there is this unprecedented announcement by the European Commission that it will suspend trade clauses within the EU-Israel Association Agreement. So, please give me a little more details about this. Of course, this is unprecedented, but will other questions be passed between member states?
A. Well, that’s always a problem. In July, I gave the Council of Europe and the Foreign Minister a choice. What tools do you use to pressure the Israeli government to change courses? If everyone agrees to the diagnosis, the question for us is, what are we doing about this? And now the proposal is on the table. One of them is the suspension of the trade portion of the association agreement. In 2024 there will be trade with Israel of 42.6 billion euros. So it’s a fair amount. And when it comes to priority treatment, 37% of that trade really receives priority treatment. So, this step will definitely be expensive for Israel. The question you raised is very correct now. Will it pass in the council? Q.To confirm, 37% of the 42 billion are on the table.
A. This is a priority treatment under this association agreement.
Q. Will goods coming from Israel bring obligations to them?
A. Yes.
Q. I understand. Well, one of the major countries blocking all of this is Germany, as it is a qualified majority rather than a unanimous vote on this particular proposal. And it has been happening consistently for the past two years. What would you say if the German government decides to block this again?
A. Well, we had a very intensive discussion on this at the Foreign Affairs Council. And my question for all my counterparts was that, as it is not only Germany, the situation would be disastrous and unacceptable if I agreed to a diagnosis that the situation was very serious. If you do not support these measures, what measures can you support? It brings an alternative. At the same time, Germany took a step forward when it came to stopping the delivery of weapons to Israel.
It was difficult for them, considering the German side and their public opinion.
Q. Well, today’s announcement, we’ve seen this attack on Gaza ground. Last week or so, the International Association of Genocide Scholars said that what’s going on in Gaza is genocide. The UN Commission says the same thing. Of course, Israel would say this was in response to the Hamas attack on October 7th, and is chasing Hamas. But what is your impression of the Gaza situation?
A. Well, the attack on Gaza will only destroy, devastate and lose civilian lives more. I don’t think that has a real outcome. The outcome must be a ceasefire and release of the group and all hostages by the parties. So we also support all the efforts involved.
Q. I know that the court will decide whether genocide is taking place, but given these organizations that are coming out, I know that genocide is happening and that the genocide treaty itself says that everyone has a positive obligation to prevent genocide.
A. No, of course, that’s why we have agreed to Israel to truly prevent all these atrocities from happening and to truly help the people on earth.
Q. Do you think it might be genocide?
A. Well, like you said, accountability comes from courts and international law. Therefore, these agencies say this is an analysis. And of course, it’s up to the court to decide what accountability is really for that.
Q. OK, you agree with Israel at the beginning of the summer to allow more trucks to come in to significantly increase the amount of humanitarian aid, border crossings etc., but that is not the agreed way and it is not embodied. He was killed at a humanitarian site trying to get water.
a.yeah. No, this has been extremely difficult as we have been trying to do what we can to improve the situation on the ground. There were many factors to the understanding we had right now. That means more trucks are coming in. By July it was a zero track with humanitarian assistance. After that we had a total of over 2,090 tracks in, so it’s over zero, but that’s not enough, I agree with you. It also opens its borders between Jordan and Egypt, as well as its critical infrastructure reparations, water desalination, water entering Gaza. So we saw it implemented, and yet I still don’t do that enough, and at the same time it means really shooting people on the line of humanitarian assistance. So it’s not going in the right direction and is trying to put pressure on the Israeli government to change courses.
Q. And Zero Truck has arrived in Gaza, literally no food in it, no baby formula or anything.
A.Bebe Fore July. After that, yes, there was more.
Q. Israel also attacked the leaders of Qatar Hamas during these hostage negotiations, peace negotiations. Even the United States, Israel’s biggest ally, was extremely critical of it. So, what does it do for a chance to end the situation?
A. Now, we see that there is no military solution to that conflict. Otherwise, looking at what’s going on in Gaza, it would have already been achieved. Therefore, we truly support all diplomatic efforts to achieve ceasefire and hostage releases. Unfortunately, we are not there.
Q. I heard from Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez that Israel needs to essentially freeze from all sporting and cultural events. I’ve seen several countries
The Netherlands, Ireland and others say they won’t attend Eurovision if Israel is allowed to do so. What are your own opinions on things like how the freeze from Israel became the apartheid era?
A.Now, it is also a step that should be with Russian athletes and was taken. So, this clearly gives a message of international isolation. That the masses of various countries in these countries do not support what the Israeli government is doing. What I really want to emphasize is that we also have symptoms in Israel. Although not the people of Israel, the Israeli government’s actions have led to our public opinion that this is contrary to this.
Q. Do you think there is anti-Semitism about this approach, or do you think there is anti-Semitism about this approach, to freeze Israel?
A. This is of course an accusation on the other side, and that’s why I want to maintain a clear distinction that it’s not all the steps we’re making at the European level either. It is not against the people of Israel. It’s about changing the Israeli government’s pressure and changing courses.
Q. Now, from the perspective of Ukraine, we have made 19 drone invasions into Poland. There was also one over the President’s Palace last night. When he’s doing this, it feels like Putin is no longer a risk aversion.
A.No, Putin is clearly testing the West. What we need to keep in mind is that our government wants to refrain from supporting Ukraine because Putin wants to have fear within our society. But this is the wrong approach. This is precisely what the Russians want, what they get, and their aggression pays off, so they get what they want in Ukraine, and then we are all at risk. I think we have to keep that in mind.
Q. However, he is also trying to identify the difference in NATO between the US approach and the European approach. And is that obviously a concern?
A. Absolutely, that’s why our responses should be united because our responses want to divide us.
That’s very clear. He wants to divide us into transatlantic relations, he also wants to divide us in Europe. Because when we are divided, we are weak. That’s very clear. So our answer is that we are not letting him do that.
Q. But isn’t he right? That means the US has not applied sanctions since.
Trump administration on Russia. They have not been realized about the threat of any kind to Russia around the ceasefire, the effects of not having a ceasefire. Donald Trump has done nothing and there are no signs of security guarantees.
A. Well, yes, when you look at the peace efforts President Trump has made, Putin is just laughing at all these efforts. When we think about the meeting in Alaska, what happened afterwards is Putin’s increased attacks. It was the largest air attack ever on Ukraine and is now an invasion of Poland. It requires a very clear understanding of what we are against. And because if we want to stop this war, we should put pressure on those who actually want war, which is Russia.
Q. And if this happens again, especially the expensive nature of trying to shoot down these is so great for Poland and NATO, as these small drones are cheap and cost a huge amount of money to protect European territory.
A. And it suggested the idea of a drone wall so it didn’t actually cost that much. There are sensors to get information where the drone comes, and there are also interceptor drones, allowing the drone to defeat them. And it doesn’t cost much. We proposed it and yesterday I was talking to Saceur and NATO. Also, our interests are very consistent, so how can we cooperate on this?