EU foreign policy chief says Israeli settlements should be treated like Russian-occupied Crimea

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, has said that the EU should treat illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories in the same way as it treated Russia’s invasion of Crimea.

Kallas told The Irish Times on Friday that Europe could not be taken seriously as long as it remained divided on a response to the actions taken by the Israeli government and violent settlers, encouraging nations to adopt a “principled stance” by backing an EU-wide ban on Israeli settlement trade, which is illegal under international law.

She added that the volume of trade with the settlements is small, but the move to ban trade carried an important symbolic message nevertheless.

If the proposal was approved as an EU trade measure rather than a foreign policy decision, it would only require the support of a majority of member states, rather than unanimous agreement for sanctions - which Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovenia currently oppose.