Germany and the Czech Republic are blocking all sanctions on Israel, while Italy sits on the fence, even though EU leaders will repeatedly “condemn” Israeli aggression at next week’s summit.
The German and Czech ambassadors told the other 25 at a meeting of the ‘Political and Security Committee’ in the EU Council in Brussels on Tuesday (9 June) that they were against blacklisting an extremist Israeli minister or banning trade with West Bank settlers, according to diplomatic sources.
The German and Czech EU embassies declined to confirm or deny the information.
This meant there would be no visa ban on Israeli security minister Itmar Ben-Gvir, which needed EU27 consensus, despite his personal brutality toward EU nationals on an aid flotilla to Gaza in May.
And Slovenia’s new pro-Israeli prime minister, populist Janez Janša, would probably veto too, based on his X posts.
