The Netherlands is willing to consider national measures against Israel if the European Union should not reach an agreement on this later this month. That is what outgoing Minister of Foreign Affairs Caspar Veldkamp (NSC) said on Wednesday in a commission debate In the Lower House. Even if there is no ceasefire between Hamas and Israel by that time, Veldkamp says he wants to “look” to steps.
Although Veldkamp chose cautious language on Wednesday, with these statements he again shows that the Dutch setup towards Israel is slowly shifting. He previously took the initiative on behalf of the Netherlands to have it investigated in a European context whether Israel ignores the conditions of the EU association agreement.
According to Veldkamp itself, Israel violates humanitarian law through the border to Gaza so that food, water and medicines cannot enter the area. Veldkamp also recently joined a row of countries that wants to impose sanctions on two extreme right -wing ministers from the Israeli war cabinet.
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July 15 Veldkamp and his European colleagues come together. Kaja Kallas, the foreign chief of the European Union, then may come up with a proposal for measures against Israel. The reason for this is the investigation initiated by Veldkamp into the association agreement between the European Union and Israel. That research found that there are indeed ‘indications’ that Israel violates the association agreement. However, Europe is strongly distributed about which consequences must be attached to this.
Nevertheless, during the debate, Veldkamp said to prefer measures in the EU context to unilateral measures. According to Veldkamp, national measures will “not have a lot of effect”, but if more countries take unilateral steps, it can result in something, he said. To the frustration of opposition parties, he did not want to anticipate what measures this could be.
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