Ahead of the meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers in Brussels on 15 July that will decide whether to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, Eve Geddie, the Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office, said:
“It’s crunch time for the EU and its member states. The EU has spent years delaying action, and denying and even defending Israel’s grave violations of international law. Now, according to its own assessment, it is clear that Israel is in breach of its obligations under the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
“When foreign ministers meet next week there can only be one outcome: suspend the agreement. Anything less is a greenlight for Israel to continue its genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, its unlawful occupation of the whole Occupied Palestinian Territory, and its system of apartheid against all Palestinians whose rights it controls.
“The EU and its member states have an obligation to ban trade and investment that could contribute to these serious violations. Every day the EU fails to act, the risk of complicity in Israel’s actions grows.
“While a minority of EU member states risk blocking this suspension – their intransigence must not prevent the rest of the Union upholding their obligations under international law. If the EU cannot agree to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, member states must take matters into their own hands and unilaterally suspend all forms of cooperation with Israel that may contribute to its grave violations of international law.”
Background
On 23 June 2025, the European Commission presented its ‘timid’ review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement to EU foreign ministers. The review found that Israel is breaching its human rights obligations but did not present any measures for the EU to take in response. High Representative Kallas announced that she would contact Israel to “look at how we can improve the situation on the ground”, delaying any meaningful action.
Three weeks later the situation in Gaza has dramatically worsened. Israel has continued to use starvation of civilians as a weapon of war as part of its ongoing genocide, and Palestinians are being killed daily while trying to access food at military-controlled distribution sites. Earlier this week, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz openly called for the forced displacement of 600,000 Palestinians, a plan reportedly supported by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
In the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Palestinians are also facing increasingly violent state-backed settler attacks and military operations that have resulted in killings, injuries and unlawful transfer of entire communities.
On 15 July, foreign ministers are expected to vote on a number of possible measures, which may include: suspending the agreement in its entirety, suspending its trade and/or science provisions, imposing sanctions on Israeli officials implicated in international crimes and/or settlers, or imposing an arms embargo. Amnesty International joins 186 human rights and humanitarian organizations and trade unions calling for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.