Slovenia’s Prime Minister Janez Janša reportedly blocked last week the adoption by the 27 member states of a statement condemning the Israeli government for announcing the E1 project, a plan to build houses in a strategic area located between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim in Judea.
By Yossi Lempkowicz
Last April, with the defeat of Viktor Orbán,in Hungary’s elections, Israel lost his closest friend in the European Union. Until then, Budapest systematically blocked any anti-Israel initiative from other member states.
The loss of a close ally was particularly sensitive as relations between the EU and Israel are tense especially over the situation in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza.
Since then, however, Israel appears to have find a replacement for Orban in Brussels in the person of Janez Janša, the new Prime Minister of Slovenia who was elected in June.
Until June, Slovenia under former Prime Minister Robert Golob was with Spain and Ireland, one of the most hostile country towards Israel. His government made Slovenia the first European Union state to ban all weapons trade with Israel.
But with the return to power of right-wing politician Jansa, the country’s pro-Palestinian policy was reversed.
He called his predecessor’s recognition of Palestine “illegal’’, backed Israel’s right to attack Gaza and other countries in the region and repeatedly declared: “We stand with Israel”.
In his first gesture, the new Prime Minister of Slovenia ordered the Palestinian flag be removed from the main government building in the capital Ljubljana, where it had flown for two years. He also said Slovenia would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Amid the change in relations between Ljubjana and Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announcesd that his country would establish an embassy in the Slovenian capital and appoint an ambassador in September.
That Slovenia is becoming Israel’s new shield among the 27 EU member state, together with another Central European country, the Czech Republic, took a concrete form these last days when it was reported that the country blocked the adoption by the 27 member states of a statement condemning Israel for announcing the E1 project, a plan to build houses in a strategic area located between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim in Judea.
Following Slovenia’s intervention, E.U. foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas published a condemnation in her name and not in the name of the 27. In the statement, she said: “The E.U. position is clear: Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, including in the E1 area, are illegal under international law, Implementation of the plan in the so-called E1 corridor would divide the West bank in two, isolating East Jerusalem, and further eroding the viability of a two-state solution,” ‘’These developments take place as the West Bank experiences further instability and record levels of settler violence,’’ she added.
But Prime Minister Janša stressed on X, that ‘’we have only removed Slovenia from the vicious circle of losing credibility in the face of constant disproportionate condemnations of Israel for every move.’’
‘’While the Brussels bureaucracy remains silent about the extermination of entire villages of Christians in Nigeria, the massacres of its own people by Hamas in Gaza, massacres in Iran or the increasingly frequent anti-Semitic outbursts in Europe, it reacts to every announcement by Israel that it will build some kind of village,’’ he added.
‘’The use of double standards has brought the so-called EU foreign policy to a state of near irrelevance. While a single word from the US president can cause a change in energy prices, the EU’s empty foreign policy messages do not change or solve anything,’’ Janša concluded.
His move to block the EU27 condemnation of Israel was criticized by Slovenia’s President President Pirc Musar who said that “international law is not a matter of political choice and there must be no double standards in its observance. It applies equally to all.’’ She called for ‘’a clear and united European response regarding the expansion of Israeli settlements.’’
She also opposed the proposed relocation of the Slovenian embassy to Jerusalem.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated Slovenia’s support for a two-state solution ‘’that takes into account the legitimate interests of both sides.’’
According to Tomas Sandell, Founding Director of the European Coalition for Israel (ECI), standing up for the safety and security of the Jewish people has always been a minority position in Europe. ”Slovenia deserves all credit for expressing its support for Israel during this critical time,” he told European Jewish Press.
He added that the current controversy surrounding the E-1 corridor ‘’is aiming at putting in to question the Jewish claim to Jerusalem as its undivided and eternal capital, promised to it under international law in the San Remo resolution of 1920.’’ Despite being the historic capital of the Jewish people for more than 3000 years it is also critical for the security of the modern State of Israel and necessary for establishing defensible borders.’’
”Almost three years after October 7, the deadliest pogrom against Jews after the Holocaust, the EU continues to be obsessed with the idea of a Palestinian state at all costs, despite repeated rejections by the Palestinians to sign any such peace agreements,’’ Sandel said.
Slovenia’s efforts to block anti-Israeli decisions will again be put on test in the next few weeks. First next week when European Union Foreign Ministers are again expected to discuss whether to impose trade restrictions with Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and blacklist Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir when they meet informally in Ireland, the country currently chairing the six-month EU Council of Ministers and which is one of the EU countries pushing for such sanctions. But the so-called ”Gymnich” format of the meeting doesn’t allow for formal decisions which should be postponed to October’s regular Foreign Affaairs Council meeting.
However, Israel is expected to be very high on the Irish agenda with new calls to isolate Jerusalem diplomatically and economically, including renewed calls for suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
‘’Ireland won’t stop pushing for EU sanctions on Israeli settlements, even though the unanimity required around the table remains a distant prospect. What I will ensure during the presidency is that this issue remains on the agenda,” said Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee said in an interview, adding there is “no way” sanctioning trade with illegal West Bank settlements will drop off foreign ministers’ agenda.
EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas has tried over the last months without success to broker a majority of the 27 member states needed for the suspension of trade with what the EU calls ‘’illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank’’ and unanimity to support sanctions on the Israeli ministers over human rights concerns.
“I expected a rejection of the plan because of the current political circumstances in Israel,” said German MEP Hildegard Bentele, who chairs the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with Israel, in a reference to upcoming electins in Israel schduled for October 27. ‘’Anything other than an insistence on Hamas’ disarmament is very hard to explain to an Israeli public, whose main concerns are still security concerns,’’ she added.
Relations between Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Kallas have soured after the EU top diplomat had reportedly likened, during a close-door meeting in Mexico, Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to South Africa under the apartheid regime, In a reaction to the reported remarks, which were never confirmed nor denied, the Israeli Minister decided to cut all ties with her “until she retracts the blood libel she directed at the world’s only Jewish state.”
Israel apparently prefers to speak with European Commissioner for the Mediterranean Commissioner, Dubravka Šuica, in the wake of a rising power struggle between the EU’s external service and Ursula von der Leyen’s European Executive Commission over who leads the EU foreign policy.
Yossi Lempkowicz is editor-in-chief of European Jewish Press (EJP) and Senior Media Advisor of Europe Israel Press Association (EIPA).