Despite a push from Luxembourg’s foreign minister and other officials urging the European Union to strongly oppose Israel’s planned application of sovereignty to the Jordan Valley, and parts of Judea and Samaria, a Reuters investigation into internal documents and interviews with more than two-dozen diplomats and officials demonstrates that the European Union is divided on how to react.
Luxembourg’s Jean Asselborn wrote to other E.U. foreign ministers in December warning about the damage Israeli sovereignty would do to the possibility of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the report. Asselborn has also expressed concern about the potential damage to international law.
“We cannot cut international law into pieces. There are principles that need to be upheld,” Asselborn said in a telephone interview, according to the report.
However, a senior E.U. diplomat said there was not likely to be a clear, united E.U. position on the issue.
“It’s hell in the E.U. to try to get a common position on this,” said the diplomat, according to the report.
The E.U. states against Israeli sovereignty are Luxembourg, Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Malta and Finland, while on the pro-Israel side are Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Greece, Latvia, Cyprus and Poland, the report said, citing E.U. diplomats, cables and meeting transcripts.
France and Spain are siding against Israel, though not being as vocal about it, while Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy are in the middle.
