{"id":372115,"date":"2024-06-21T18:01:10","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T16:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/06\/21\/israele-ue-consiglio-di-associazione\/"},"modified":"2024-06-25T19:29:40","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T17:29:40","slug":"israel-responded-to-the-eus-request-to-convene-an-association-council-but-not-only-on-human-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/06\/21\/israel-responded-to-the-eus-request-to-convene-an-association-council-but-not-only-on-human-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel responded to the EU’s request to convene an Association Council. But not only on human rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – The Israeli government has responded to the EU’s request to convene an Association Council to discuss respect for human rights provided for in the Association Agreement between Brussels and Tel Aviv.\u00a0Israel “is willing to consider” the invitation and “wants to negotiate the agenda<\/strong>,” a senior EU official confirms. But the distance between the parties on the agenda persists.<\/p>\n

Tel Aviv’s response will be examined by the foreign ministers of the Twenty-Seven\u00a0as early as next Monday, June 24. The approval had already been anticipated<\/a> on June 17 by the Israeli counterpart, Israel Katz<\/strong>, during the visit to Israel of the Hungarian Foreign Minister, P\u00e9ter Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3. In their meeting, the two had agreed that the Jewish state would accept the invitation only once Hungary’s rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union<\/strong> began. Budapest\u2014 one of the staunchest defenders in the EU of Israeli military operations from Oct. 7 onward\u2014will take over the leadership of the Twenty-Seven\u00a0from July 1.<\/p>\n

However, “apparently, there is a\u00a0big misunderstanding on the part of the Israeli government as to what an Association Council<\/strong> is, because the rotating presidency of the EU does not chair an Association Council,” comment qualified sources. The Association Council is the highest-level institution regulating relations between the EU and its most privileged partners with which it has precisely an Association Agreement. As such, it is chaired by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs\u2014Josep Borrell, at least until this fall.<\/p>\n

In fact,” the sources go on to explain “consists of two parts. A first part in which “only the High Representative sits at the table on behalf of the EU,” and a second part “in which the member states also participate.” So,\u00a0it is “completely irrelevant” who holds the rotating presidency<\/strong>,\u00a0whether it is the current presidency, Belgium\u2014strongly critical of Israel\u2014or Hungary.<\/p>\n

An Association Council takes place when both parties agree on a date and agenda. In turn, the 27 member countries must unanimously agree on the date, agenda, and common position. “In its response, Israel did not give any indication on the date<\/strong>,” a senior EU official again lets Eunews<\/em> know. As for the agenda, the 27 had decided to follow up on the call of Spain and Ireland and convene the Association Council to\u00a0verify Israel’s compliance with its commitments in the area of human rights protection<\/strong> in light of the war waged in Gaza and the more than 37,000 deaths among the Palestinian civilian population.<\/p>\n

Member countries were convinced of the need to hold Tel Aviv to account for its behaviour last May 27<\/a>, after the massacre at the Rafah refugee camp. According to Politico<\/em><\/a> reports, Israel is reportedly refusing to meet with EU countries for an ad hoc human rights summit, but in the letter, insisted that the Association Council address, “as with any other country, all elements of EU-Israel bilateral relations, including trade, education, and culture<\/strong>.” As well as “topics related to human rights and war.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tel Aviv “wants to negotiate the agenda” of the summit and wait for its Hungarian friend to take over the rotating presidency of the EU Council. Sources: “Rotating presidency irrelevant, the Association Council is chaired by the EU High Representative.” The 27 will discuss this at the next meeting of foreign ministers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":314553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[25746,28258,25890],"class_list":["post-372115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-council-of-association-en","tag-israele"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372115"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372121,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372115\/revisions\/372121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}