A cross-party caucus group of members of the European Parliament will be launched in the coming weeks to support the Abraham Accords, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola announced.
She made the announcement as she addressed Wednesday a reception in Brussels organized by the Israel embassy to mark the country’s 75th Independence Day, in the presence of the ambassadors of the UAE and Bahrein. Metsola also emphasized the importance of EU-Israel relations.
The new parliamentary group will be led by three MEPs : Swedish David Lega (from the European People’s Party), German Nicola, Beer (from Renew) and Italian Pina Picierno (from the S&D).
The Abraham Accords, signed under the auspices of the U.S. in September 2020, paved the way for the normalization of Israel’s relations with the UA and Bahrein, and later with Morocco and Sudan.
The EU has been in the beginning reluctant to support the Abraham Accords. In November 2020, EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told the European parliament that although the agreements bring positive developments, ‘’they do not address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.’’
Senior members of the European Parliament have challenged the EU to do more in support of the Abraham Accords which represented a paradigm shift. “The European Union could start by becoming an official signatory of the Abraham Accords”, has said MEP David Lega. “The European Union could align more with the countries who have already signed the Abraham Accords and offer them free trade agreements”, suggested MEP Lukas Mandl from Austria.
According to Israel’s ambassador to the EU, Haim Regev, ”it took time for us to convince the Europeans that the Abraham Accords were a deep and dramatic development, that they should be part of it.”