BRUSSELS, April 11: European Union foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg next week face growing public and parliamentary pressure to impose immediate sanctions on Israel in protest at the Jewish state’s military campaign against Palestinians.
A robust European Parliament resolution adopted this week calls for a rapid suspension of the EU’s association pact with Israel as a sign of the bloc’s growing disapproval of Israeli action.
Spain, as the current holder of the EU presidency, has warned that sanctions against Israel cannot be excluded, with the issue topping the agenda of the Luxembourg meeting on April 15.
Calls for a more cautious approach, however, have come from the European Commission whose President Romano Prodi warned on Thursday that punitive action against Israel state would not help end Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Instead, the commission chief called for an early meeting with the Israeli government to express growing European concerns over Israel’s military offensive against Palestinians.
Such an encounter would allow the EU to “express directly our concerns to the Israeli government” over continuing actions against Palestinians, the commission chief told reporters.
Asked if he thought it was time to suspend the EU-Israel association pact as demanded by the European Parliament, Prodi said he did not want to strike a further blow to relations with Israel.
“I do not want to jump to premature decisions which make matters worse,” Prodi insisted. But when asked the same question, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar told Spanish radio that he did not “exclude any possibility”.
Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique has also warned that the EU is “not ruling out any scenario. “There are some countries which favour entering into that debate, others which have more reservations,” Pique said.
Many in the bloc are worried that cutting off institutional ties with Israel will further reduce Europe’s leverage over the country.
But others argue that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s decision last week to bar an EU delegation from meeting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is an affront that Europe cannot ignore.
