(August 4, 2025)
Italy, Spain, and Hungary have been in favor of mandatory chat scanning from the start. France could tip the balance since blocking the plan requires four countries representing at least 35 percent of the EUâs population. Paris has moved from tentative support to saying it could âbasically support the proposal.â
(August 11, 2025)
The EU presents itself as a global champion of moral and legal leadership, grounded in the principles of human rights, international law, democracy, and humanitarianism. Yet its failure to uphold these values in the case of Palestine severely undermines its credibility. As Israelâs largest trading partner and second-largest arms supplier, the EU possesses considerable leverage; its refusal to use this influence to hold Israel accountable or protect Palestinian lives signals not powerlessness but a conscious choice of complicity. Moreover, given its member statesâ historical entanglement in the colonial partitioning of the Middle East, the EU bears a deeper responsibility to act with justice. Its failure to do so today echoes the very dynamics of domination and double standards it claims to have left behind.
(July 15, 2025)
Reacting to the EUâs decision not to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, AgnĂšs Callamard Amnesty Internationalâs Secretary General said:
âThe EUâs refusal to suspend its agreement with Israel is a cruel and unlawful betrayal â of the European project and vision, predicated on upholding international law and fighting authoritarian practices, of the European Unionâs own rules and of the human rights of Palestinians.
This will be remembered as one of the most disgraceful moments in the EUâs history.
(August 4, 2025)
Gathered online for their regular Mashreq/Maghreb Working Party and despite mounting pressure on Israel over the hunger crisis in Gaza, the 27 EU diplomats still couldnât reach any qualified majority on a European Commission proposal to cut Israel from partial access to the EU‘s âŹ95 billion Horizon Europe research fund.
âThe situation has not changed,â one EU diplomat said, referring to a formal meeting of EU ambassadors last week which also failed to agree to the Commissionâs proposal. The diplomat said the issue was now in the hands of the EUâs foreign affairs ministers, who will meet informally on 29 August.