Former EU Diplomats Urge Bloc to Suspend Cooperation Agreement with Israel over Ongoing Gaza Genocide

Brussels (Quds News Network)- More than 300 former European diplomats and officials have urged EU leaders to take a “far more” decisive response to the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, including a full suspension of the bloc’s cooperation agreement with Israel.

In a letter signed by 314 signatories, they call on all EU member states to recognise the state of Palestine, joining 147 countries to have done so. France, Belgium, the UK, Canada and Australia, among others, are expected to show support for a Palestinian state later this month at a UNGA meeting.

The letter was signed by nearly 140 people who worked as EU diplomats or senior commission officials, as well as 175 diplomats for EU member states, including Belgium, France, Spain, Italy and Germany. The support from German and Italian diplomats is seen as especially significant, as both countries are helping to block a proposal to suspend EU research funds to Israeli organisations.

The statement followed the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, calling for sanctions on extremist ministers and a suspension of the trade part of the EU-Israel association agreement. “Man-made famine can never be a weapon of war,” she said in what is said to be her sharpest comments on Israel’s 23-month genocide.

She also announced a freeze on financial support to the Israeli occupation government: €6m (£5.2m) annual regional funds and a €14m grant for public institutions.

Michael Doyle, a former EU ambassador and co-organiser of the letter, said: “It was good to hear the announcements yesterday, but of course now we want to see those words put into action.”

But the letter, which has been sent to von der Leyen and the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, goes further than the steps outlined by the commission president on Wednesday. It calls for the full suspension of the EU-Israel agreement and urges the union to show leadership in global bodies by putting pressure on Israel to comply with international law.

“We cannot stand idly by, watching Gaza reduced to rubble and its inhabitants to destitution and starvation,” said the former EU ambassador Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, another co-organiser, who served as the EU’s envoy to the occupied Palestinian territories. “The issue is whether the EU and like-minded nations are going to stand up for basic humanity and for the values that underpin the postwar international order.”

To pass the proposal requires a majority of 15 member states, representing 65% of the EU’s population.

The EU has been deeply divided over how to respond to Israel’s assault on Gaza, with staunch allies of Israel such as Hungary and the Czech Republic on one side, and those such as Belgium, Ireland and Spain on the other.

It is the fourth letter the group has sent since July, opposing the Israeli assault.

Separately, the European parliament passed its first resolution on Gaza for years. The non-binding vote, titled Gaza at breaking point, expressed support for suspending the trade part of the EU-Israel association agreement and imposing sanctions on Israeli extremist ministers.

The text was supported by 305 MEPs, although 151 voted against and 122 abstained on the issue.

Hilde Vautmans, the Belgian liberal who led negotiations on the text, said the result was a message to EU member states and the commission: “No more excuses, time to act now.”