The European Union should be brought to respond to an international court for its “inaction” in front of the “massacre” that is making Israel in the Gaza strip. To ask for it is the man who was responsible for foreign policy in the last legislature of the European Union, the former high representative, Josep Borrell.
“Someone should act judicially to ensure that European institutions do what they have to do and, since they seem to do not want to do it, there is something called Court of Justice to bring the case of inaction there,” Borrell underlined in the media declarations on the occasion of the start of the Qua Vadis Europe course, which he directs at the Universidad Internacional Mensendez Pelayo of Santander.
“They don’t do anything”
According to him, the European institutions “are not doing anything, literally nothing”. In his opinion, in front of “this massacre, they do nothing but snatch the petals of Margherita, they say that yes, perhaps they will make a proposal to establish some kind of sanction, but then they don’t do it”.
Borrell therefore asked that a state, an organization or “someone legitimate” puts the cards on the table and turns to the courts to force European institutions to act.
Israel and human rights
The former high representative believes that Israel is violating human rights and underlined that “it is not a voluntary decision to act or not”, since the EU treaties impose it. “And if you do not do it, you incur a responsibility, not only in a moral complicity, but in a political responsibility, even administrative, because they are violating one’s obligations,” he warned.
According to Borrell, what is happening in Gaza is “an absolutely unacceptable tragedy for the world and only the public opinions of developed countries, those who give weapons to Israel, who feed him, who support him, can prevent this from continuously”.
The blockade of Germany and Italy
The EU foreign policy actions require, for the most part, the unanimous consent of the Member States, and this made it difficult to intervene also at the time of Borrell, who, however, has always been very critical of Tel Aviv for the way he was leading his campaign to Gaza.
His successor, Kaya Kallas, was instead from the beginning more cautious than him and, after asking for a review of the association agreement between the EU and Israel, he limited himself to proposing the suspension of only a part of this, that relating to the participation in the Horizon research program, and only partially. Yet not even this minimal action, more symbolic than anything else, has ever been approved due to the blockade of countries such as Hungary, Germany and Italy, despite the fact that most of the Member States is in favor. 18 packages of sanctions have been approved against Russia for the war in Ukraine.
