Ireland has called on the European Union to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as Ireland prepares to adopt its own national legislation within weeks.
Ahead of a meeting in Brussels, EU foreign ministers said the provocative behaviour against flotilla activists carried out by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and the uproar it caused make European action against the settler movement even more urgent.
Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee revealed a new impetus in Brussels as she arrived for the ministerial meeting. "Europe now needs to act and needs to respond to Israeli behaviour," she said. She was speaking just hours before the Dutch government formally approved its national import ban on settlement products, which now has to be greenlighted by Parliament.
"We saw this week the actions of the Israeli government, and in particular an Israeli minister against Irish, but also European and international citizens who had been illegally detained in international water," Ms McEntee said. "This is just one of a number of actions that we've seen in recent months, and indeed years."
Ms McEntee said she would ask the European Commission to put forward proposals to ban trade with Israeli settlements that have been considered illegal by Brussels since 1967.
"I think it is time that we take action at a European level, and it's time that we respond to these constant responses and breaches of international law," she said.
European countries have expressed alarm at Israel's push to annex the West Bank and increasing settler violence against Palestinians. In a joint statement issued Friday, Italy, Germany, the UK and France called on companies not take part in the so-called E1 project, which would bisect the West Bank and cut much of the territory off from East Jerusalem.
Companies that take part in the bid to build 3,400 houses would violate of international law, the statement warned. "We firmly oppose those, including members of the Israeli government, who advocate annexation and the forced displacement of the Palestinian population," it said.
'Enough'
Also speaking ahead of the Brussels meeting, Benjamin Dousa, Sweden's Minister for International Development Co-operation and Foreign Trade, said Mr Ben-Gvir's provocations have "already changed the dynamics" within the EU. "More and more countries have had enough," Mr Dousa said.
Thursday, Poland's Foreign Ministry said it had asked its Interior Ministry to issue a visa ban against Mr Ben-Gvir. Italy also reacted strongly to his behaviour towards the flotilla activists, demanding an apology and EU-wide sanctions against him. Belgium, Slovenia, Spain and the Netherlands issued visa bans in the past year at national level.
Mr Dousa also called on the EU to take stronger action against settler trade and toughen its differentiation policy. Implemented in 2015, this policy requires that products from the occupied territories be labelled as distinct from Israeli imports when sold in European markets. It does not forbid trade.
But France and Sweden last month asked the Commission to go further by restricting or banning trade with illegal Israeli settlements. This is "gaining broader support," Mr Dousa added.
Commenting on the Commission's failure so far to respond to the French-Swedish demand, Mr Sousa said Sweden would maintain its pressure campaign.
"We will push for the Commission to present concrete measures in this area as soon as possible," he said. "And we have proposed a palette of measures that can be introduced. For example, requiring export licenses, or significantly increased tariffs. The important thing is that we stop the inflow of products into the EU from occupied land where someone else’s land has been stolen."
Annual trade between the EU and the occupied territories is valued at about €340 million ($397.7 million), less than a tenth of overall EU-Israeli trade.
Speaking on Thursday to Irish MPs, Ms McEntee said she would publish legislation to ban trade with Israeli settlements "within weeks".
"It is important that we agree at a European level to do this, but it is also important that we progress the legislation that we have said we are committed to and we have been working on," Ms McEntee said.
Ireland was the first EU state to start working on such a bill in 2018. But it has moved more slowly than other states, such as Spain and Slovenia, which implemented bans last year. Belgium is also working on national legislation.
Spain and Slovenia largely based their decisions on an advisory opinion by the ICJ issued in July 2024, calling on nations to abstain from economic or trade dealings with Israeli settlements.
Ireland had chosen to advocate at EU level to restrict trade with Israel because it requires a qualified majority vote and is thus more likely to be adopted than measures that need unanimity, including sanctions, Ms McEntee said.
Since early 2024, a few months after the start of the war in Gaza, Ireland has pushed, alongside Spain, for the EU to suspend the EU-Israel association agreement in whole or in part.
But there has not been sufficient support from other EU states for this to be adopted, despite the EU's external action service concluding in a report last year that Israel had breached its human rights clause.
States also failed to adopt a Commission proposal in September to sanction Mr Ben-Gvir and another far-right Israeli minister close to the settlement movement, Bezalel Smotrich. Major opponents of such measures include Germany, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
