_european_union,_2025__xlarge.jpg "End of gridlock over Gaza?")
End of gridlock over Gaza?
VDL’s 2025 State of the Union speech was a pivotal moment of this plenary week – and her comments on Gaza a pivotal moment of the speech.
The annual SOTEU address gives European citizens, and in particular their representatives in the European Parliament, a chance to judge whether the current commission is meeting their expectations.
Israel in VDL’s sights
The speech was given to an audience of MEPs, at least a third of whom were dressed in red in protest against European inaction in Gaza. And one of the most publicised parts of the Commission president’s speech relates to this very issue. Ursula von der Leyen finally announced concrete measures against Israel in response to the latter’s use of famine as “a weapon of war” – an announcement which, for many, has been a long time in coming.
The measures include suspending the Commission’s bilateral support for Israel – for which read ‘financial support’. She is also proposing a “partial suspension” of the EU/Israel Association Agreement on trade, as well as the imposition of sanctions against extremist Israeli ministers and violent Israeli settlers, but both of these measures will require the backing of member states in the Council. The trade suspension has a better chance of getting through as it only needs a qualified majority, whereas the sanctions require that ever-elusive unanimity.
Despite this notable shift in stance, though, the co-chair of the Left group is, perhaps unsurprisingly, unimpressed. euradio shares Manon Aubry’s comments.
Manon Aubry, Member of the European Parliament – The Left, France (in French):
“It took her 700 days of genocide in the Gaza Strip to finally announce something. And that announcement is the partial suspension of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel. But in the face of genocide, we cannot be satisfied with half-measures or partial measures. There is nothing on the arms embargo, nothing on sanctions against the Israeli government regime, at a time when we are beginning our 18th package of sanctions against Russia. So this application of international law is intolerable. And that is one of the reasons why the whole of the Left united this morning in red in the Chamber to draw a red line against the genocide in Gaza, but also to show a red card to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.”
Aubry’s Left group has since filed a motion for Ursula von der Leyen to face another no-confidence vote as early as next month – as has the far-right Patriots for Europe group. VDL’s commission would be forced to resign should either motion pass… although this outcome is unlikely.
So, why has the Commission President been so reluctant to take more decisive action against Israel? Saskia Bricmont, a Belgian MEP in the Greens/EFA group, offers RTBF her thoughts.
Saskia Bricmont, Member of the European Parliament – Greens/EFA, Belgium (in French):
“No doubt she does not do so partly because we are bound hand and foot to Israel, on which we depend for surveillance software and technologies. Israel has already taken unilateral measures against countries, such as Spain, that recognise the Palestinian state. So we can see that Europeans are being blackmailed. But we must not let ourselves be blackmailed, certainly not by an extreme right-wing government, several of whose leaders, including Netanyahu himself, are the subject of international arrest warrants. Action is urgently required.”
On that note, our colleagues at The Europeans speak to Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, whose three-year stint as the EU's representative to the West Bank and Gaza Strip came to an end in July 2023. During his tenure, he attempted to hold both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to account for violations of human rights and democratic standards.
More recently, he has spearheaded a series of letters signed by more than 200 of Europe’s former diplomats and high-ranking officials, the latest of which was released on Thursday evening. The letters urge the EU and its member states to take a more active stance regarding the atrocities being inflicted on the people of Gaza.
The group of diplomats have even set out measures that can and should be taken by individual member states in the absence of collective action at European level. Something, as Kühn von Burgsdorff tells The Europeans, that is entirely in line with public expectations.
Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, Former EU Representative to Palestine (in English):
“Public opinion in Europe is largely in favour of our governments, our European governments and the EU institutions, taking more drastic measures against Israel's constant violations of international law. [...] But unfortunately, the political leaders are lagging behind. And that you can see in our EU discussions. In some countries like Ireland and Slovenia and Spain, they are in tandem with the public mood, but they cannot move within the orbit of the EU and have to try other formats. And they are trying to explore this now. But countries like Italy and Germany and Hungary and the Czech Republic, and to some extent, Bulgaria and others as well, they prevent us from acting together.”
University professor Paulo Almeida Sande ran the European Parliament office in Portugal between 2004 and 2012.
He tells Renascença that, to get around this kind of impasse, Europe must make foreign policy far more flexible, much as they have done with defence policy. Foreign policy cannot be dependent on unanimity, he says, as unanimity hinders results.
But what does this mean in practice?
Paulo Almeida Sande, Expert in European Affairs (in Portuguese):
“From a decision-making perspective, the EU is now extremely flexible. Take defence policy, for instance. Some countries can already move forward using the cooperation model in the field of defence, with only those that have the capacity to do so joining. That is the logic. This could also happen on another level, a more political level, where Europe unites and increases its integration only with those countries that are willing to do so.”
Part of the reason why Kühn von Burgsdorff is striving to hold European decision-makers to account over the deteriorating situation in the Middle East is to ensure the EU remains credible as it lectures the rest of the world on human rights. The Europeans ask him specifically if the EU's response to Gaza is reshaping Europe's reputation internationally.
Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, Former EU Representative to Palestine (in English):
“I've seen some polls in some countries where people on the street – Arabs in particular, but also in other countries like South Africa – they are appalled by what they perceive as double standards, as hypocritical behaviour. They say, ‘the EU is known to be the normative power, holding international law, human rights law, democracy, governance, etc. very high. Even asking us global south governments to adhere to it, respect it. Even our trade agreements have clauses on human rights. And suddenly, when it comes to Gaza and Israel, they forget these standards. They ask us, the global south and other countries, to join the EU and American Alliance against Russia because of the terrible invasion in Ukraine in 2022, saying we need to do it to uphold international law in the multilateral order. Now, come 7 October and the onslaught on Gaza's population unfolding thereafter, after the terrible the Hamas attack, the EU seems to have forgotten this lesson.’”
Opposition and tensions
Another critical element of this year’s State of the Union drama revolved around whether the Commission president could convince her EPP group’s coalition partners in the Parliament – namely centre-left MEPs from the S&D, Renew and Green groups – that she has bought into supporting their common priorities.
These coalition partners fear that, instead of leaning in their – in the words of Belgium’s Renew MEP Benoit Cassart – “democratic” direction, the EPP is showing a growing inclination to seek support from the far right. Cassart was speaking to RTBF just minutes before von der Leyen took to the stage on Wednesday morning.
Benoit Cassart, Member of the European Parliament – Renew Europe, Belgium (in French):
“There has been a major change. The Renew Group used to be able to form majorities with the [other] democratic parties, be they the Socialists or the EPP. Today, the pivotal party has become the EPP, because it doesn't hesitate to call on the far right when the democratic parties don't agree with it. This poses a real problem for our institution, and sometimes even calls into question European values.”
And her speech, Luxembourgish S&D member Marc Angel tells 100,7, was clearly carefully aimed at retaining – or regaining – the support of VDL’s more centrist allies.
Marc Angel, Member of the European Parliament – S&D, Luxembourg (in Luxembourgish):
“She got the momentum right. She integrated a lot of our demands in this speech. These are promises, though, and who knows whether they will be kept… A year ago, she promised a lot, but has not delivered on those promises.”
Belgian Green Saskia Bricmont outlines, to our colleagues at RTBF, some of the key sticking points of the Commission’s current policy, which, she says, are upsetting members from across the political spectrum.
Saskia Bricmont – Greens/EFA, Belgium
“In all the political groups, there is growing opposition, particularly to the capitulation she accepted in the face of Trump as part of the EU-US trade deal, the unravelling of the Green Deal, the inaction in Gaza, the fact that a series of positions are not being taken, and in particular the fact that there is no longer any vision for Europe. That's what we're criticising her for – the fact that her Green Deal, which was her own vision, no longer exists.”
Green Deal stuck at a red light
So, yes, the fact that the Commission chief is perceived to be rowing back on her own flagship environmental policy is certainly setting off alarm bells.
Yvan Verougstraete, a Belgian liberal, echoes Bricmont’s concerns, in a separate interview with RTBF, about the seeming demise of the Green Deal.
Yvan Verougstraete, Member of the European Parliament – Renew Europe, Belgium (in French):
“Once again, this is proof that there is no European strategy today. The Green Deal strategy was a winning strategy from an economic point of view too. Obviously from a values point of view, because we clearly don't want to destroy our children’s land... but also from an economic point of view. The energy transition was the way forward, and it is these investments, among others, that we need to make with very substantial resources at European level. This is the only way to succeed, including economically.”
Without such action, Verougstraete goes on, the climate itself will end up waging war on our economy.
Yvan Verougstraete, Member of the European Parliament – Renew Europe, Belgium (in French):
“We're going to start talking about 'climateflation' – in other words, the impact of the climate on inflation. We will see that prices will rise simply because we have droughts, because we have fires, and so on. It is hugely, hugely misguided not to tackle the climate today.”
A little lacking in inspiration?
The Commission chief has also come under heavy and sustained fire from several quarters over her seeming reluctance to implement the recommendations of the Draghi report on the future of European competitiveness, which was released precisely a year ago.
Responding to this criticism in Wednesday’s speech, VDL assured MEPs and citizens alike that the Commission was in the process of “tackling the key bottlenecks identified by the Draghi report – from energy to capital, investment to simplification”.
Yet Lyubomir Kyuchukov, a former politician who is now director of the Sofia-based Economics and International Relations Institute, remains unconvinced, as he tells Bulgarian National Radio.
Lyubomir Kyuchukov, Director of the Economics and International Relations Institute (in Bulgarian):
“Inspiration will hardly be the prevailing mood after this speech. The debate on the future of the EU, which has gone through various stages over the last decade, starting with the White Paper and then the Conference on the Future of Europe, and on which no decisions have been taken, was absent from this speech. There was also nothing on reforms, on the way decisions are taken, on the unity of the Union – everything that largely determines the way the EU itself functions and positions itself.”
In search of a little of that much-needed inspiration, let’s return to Belgian Renew Europe member Yvan Verougstraete.
Yvan Verougstraete, Member of the European Parliament – Renew Europe, Belgium (in French):
“When you love Europe, you must be demanding with Europe. And I want us to be demanding with Europe. It is true that we have been afraid of the extremes, but when fearing the extremes, we forget to defend our actual vision, our actual project. And this project is essential if Europe is not to die a slow death, something that would be a tragedy for all our citizens.”
Indeed, fighting FOR something is often more powerful than fighting AGAINST something.