The Netherlands is planning to push forward new legislation on banning trade with illegal Israeli settlements within weeks, the Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen told The National on Monday.
Mr Berendsen was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of the EU's 27 foreign ministers during which a call by France and Sweden to restrict trade with the settlements failed to gain traction.
Discussing the Dutch legislation, which was first announced in September, Mr Berendsen said his government was “working on it.”
“It will be a process of the coming weeks where we try to set up the laws in such a way that they work,” Mr Berendsen said.
Should the Netherlands pass legislation, it would be the third EU state to do so after Slovenia and Spain last year. Belgium and Ireland are also working on similar draft laws.
This shows that member states are willing to move forward at national level if “in Europe, it doesn't go fast enough,” Mr Berendsen said.
“I hope that we have a very good discussion here in Europe to do something together because, in the end, the Netherlands always prefers European solutions,” he added.
EU divisions
EU states are historically divided on Israel. They have struggled to take measures amid growing concerns over its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.
There was a renewed push to put them back on the table last month after heavy Israeli strikes against Beirut, Israel's recent death penalty law and the acceleration of illegal settlements.
But the EU's foreign affairs minister Kaja Kallas said ambassadors to the EU were hesitant when she tested ideas on restricting trade with illegal settlements on Friday. “We do not have the necessary majority to pass these measures,” she said.
Responding to a question from The National, Ms Kallas later clarified that she had immediately raised the matter with the EU Commission for Trade after Paris and Stockholm had asked for proposals at the last meeting of foreign ministers last month.
But it was up to the EU commissioner for trade, Maros Sefcovic, to put forward a formal proposal – not her. “I asked this, but the proposal is not there and I can't draft it,” she said.
Targeting settlers
Foreign ministers did, however, agree on Monday to adopt the first package of sanctions in over a year and a half against extremist Israeli settlers.
This was rendered possible by a change of government in Hungary led to Budapest dropping its veto. “It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery,” Ms Kallas said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar criticised the move, saying the EU was sanctioning Israeli citizens for their “political views and without any basis.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, said “European hypocrisy is breaking records” after the announcement. “No one will force a policy of national suicide on the state of Israel,” he added, in a post on X.
Mr Smotrich said that in response he would present Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a plan to transfer “strategic areas” in the occupied West Bank that are currently under full or partial Palestinian control to full Israeli control.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported those sanctioned include the settlement organisation Amana; the far-right settler group Nachala and its leader, Daniella Weiss; the West Bank settler security group Hashomer Yosh, its former chief executive, Avichai Suissa; as well as the right-wing organisation Regavim and its director, Meir Deutsch.
The first two rounds of EU sanctions on extremist settlers were taken in the first half of 2024, but were then paused despite discussions starting on a third package later in the year.
Attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank are viewed as an impediment to the two-state solution backed by the EU. Hamas members were also listed.
EU sanctions include travel bans and asset freezes. They appear to have done little to deter violence in the West Bank.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank between October 7, 2023 and April 23, 2026, the UN says.
Additionally, the first four months of 2026 have been the most violent start to a year since monitoring of settler violence and harassment began in 2013.
Settlers have been supported by members of the Israeli government, which also rejects the idea of a Palestinian state. The Israeli Parliament has also backed the annexation of the West Bank.
Mounting frustration
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said that the EU should comply with international law and ban trade with illegal settlements – as Spain did in September.
Mr Albares cited a July 2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice which calls on states to “abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the occupied Palestinian territory.”
“It's not something that the EU should even wonder about. It's the consultative opinion of the ICJ that says so. So we should go forward. It's a small step, but it's something,” Mr Albares said.
Imposing tariffs – not a full ban – on imports from illegal settlements is the most realistic way forward, the Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said.
“We need to do something, and we need to do it fast,” she said. “Otherwise countries are frustrated and they move on with national decisions, and that actually only weakens the European Union.”
But Germany stood firm against any trade measure against settlements, with Minister of State Gunther Krichbaum saying it could “contribute to instability”.
Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani appeared to waver on supporting measures, despite saying last month that his cabinet was “positively evaluating the possibility of restrictions on imports of goods produced in the occupied West Bank”.
Speaking in Brussels on Monday, he said: “We said in Parliament that we are ready to examine the Franco-Swedish proposal, but it must be examined, studied.”
Depending on the proposal framework chosen by the European Commission, restricting trade could require either unanimity or a qualified majority.
This means that for it to pass, 65 per cent of the EU's population must be represented among states that back it.
Thomas Helm contributed to this report
