2023-12-15 21:03:39
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Director of the European Jewish Community Center Avi Tawil light one of the candles on a Hanukkah menorah outside the European Commission and Council headquarters in Brussels , December 10, 2023. SIMON WOHLFAHRT / AFP
All twenty-seven heads of state and government of the European Union (EU) managed, Thursday, December 14, to agree to launch the opening of accession negotiations for Ukraine, Moldova and from Bosnia-Herzegovina to the EU, as much as they remain incapable of demanding a ceasefire from Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On Friday, the subject was indeed addressed by the leaders during the second day of the European Council meeting, but there was no question of publishing conclusions on this very sensitive discussion, as disunity remains the order of the day.
While Israeli operations against Hamas continue, causing thousands of Palestinian victims, Europeans still refuse to collectively call for an end to the bombings. “Europe’s foreign policy is based on consensus, therefore unanimityrecalled Leo Varadkar, the Irish Prime Minister, before the debate. Today, a majority of European countries are in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza. But not all. There are still one or two countries that do not want this, because they think it would prevent Israel from pursuing Hamas terrorists. I do not agree with this interpretation. »
Therefore, justifies a senior European official, “we did not repeat a six-hour debate in Brussels, like on October 26 and 27 during the previous European Council, while Europeans were unable to vote in the same way at the United Nations [ONU] this week in New York on a resolution on a cease-fire request.”
“Strengthening convergence work”
Nevertheless “the positions of the countries have indeed evolved since October”, Judge Mr. Varadkar. At the end of October, European heads of state and government took hours to agree on a common text asking Israel to organize “pauses”, but not a ceasefire. Tuesday, December 12, during a UN vote, seventeen European countries supported a resolution in New York calling for an end to the fighting, seven member states abstained, including Germany and Italy, and two opposed it, Austria and the Czech Republic. By comparison, on October 27, already at the UN for the vote on a previous resolution, there were only eight to request this ceasefire, including France, and four to oppose it, the other countries ‘abstaining.
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“We are all progressing in the same direction. I am pleased that the choice that France made among the first to request a ceasefire is being followed by more and more partners”comments Emmanuel Macron. “We must strengthen the work of convergence”, argues for his part Charles Michel, the President of the European Council. However, judges the French president, “we should not make it an objective in itself. What matters most to me is that as Europeans we have a very concrete response to coordination on security issues. (…)humanitarian, and joint work on the political solution » to two states.
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