Ireland seeking review of EU-Israel trade agreement and recognition of Palestine, Taoiseach says

Ireland is seeking the support of fellow EU member states for a review of the EU-Israel trade agreement and is also discussing whether a group of countries could jointly recognise Palestine, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

Mr Varadkar was speaking at the conclusion of the EU summit in Brussels, where there was discussion among leaders, but no agreed conclusions, on the conflict in Gaza.

“We’re having discussions about different things that we could do,” Mr Varadkar said. “ICJ [the International Court of Justice case taken by South Africa alleging genocide against Israel] is one of those. Much higher up the list would be a review of the EU-Israel agreement.

“EU-Israel relations are founded on an agreement which has a human rights clause and a lot of us believe that Israel may be in breach of that, and that’s something we’re talking about,” he said.

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“Another thing we’re talking about is the possibility of recognition – that a number of EU states acting together, to recognise Palestine could enable a more equal negotiation to happen after the war has ended in Gaza ...

“ICJ is on the agenda, and I know that gets a huge amount of focus in Ireland. To be honest, there’s nobody here among the 27 member states that believes that a court case that will be decided in three or four years’ time is going to save any Palestinian lives or prevent any Palestinians being injured. There’s other actions that we need to take,” Mr Varadkar told reporters at the summit venue this afternoon.

Mr Varadkar also said that he had spoken out against any possible suspension of EU funding to the UN refugee agency in Gaza, UNWRA.

Several countries, including the US and Germany, have stopped funding the agency over allegations that some UNWRA staff were involved in the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7th. The UN is investigating the charges.

“While we are appalled at the idea and the allegations that agency staff were involved in a beastly terrorist attack against Israel on October 7th, that in itself doesn’t justify the suspension of funding from UNWRA, either from Ireland or from the European Union,” Mr Varadkar said.

However, he said that the European Commission was reviewing its funding, and acknowledged that payments due this month to the refugee agency were not certain to be delivered.

“The Commission President made it very clear that the next payment is due in February and that that payment may well be made – that there’s no freeze on EU funding. But they will want assurances from the UN that everything is being done to make sure that if there were any UN agency staff that they are dealt with,” he said.

Asked if future EU payments were no in doubt, Mr Varadkar said: “The position is that the EU is not suspending its funding for UNWRA, but it is reviewing it. And that decision will be made between now and the end of February. But I’d be confident that the decision will be made to continue that funding.”

EU leaders did not seek to have agreed written conclusions, because of divisions over Gaza, but discussed the issue at length, the Taoiseach said.

He added that Ireland needed to understand that other EU countries – he cited Germany and Austria – see questions relating to Israel in a different way owing to their history. Other countries who he said had seen attacks from Islamist allies of Hamas also have a different perspective, he said. “We just need to be understanding of that,” he added.

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