The European Union’s energy deals with Israel violate the block’s own policies and obligations under international law, according to the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the broadest Palestinian civil society coalition that works to lead and support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
Exposing what they say is the “EU’s energy hypocrisy,” BNC called the EU out for consistently failing to respect the union’s own “territorial clause in agreements with Israel.”
According to BNC, the EU violates the territorial clause by promoting and financing energy deals and projects with the Apartheid State.
By facilitating European access to Israeli fossil gas-based energy via projects like the EuroAsia Interconnector, the EU is granting recognition & assistance to Israel's apartheid regime & further exasperating the #ClimateCrisis.#UnplugIsraeliCrimeshttps://t.co/nZXbWv7xM0
— BDS movement (@BDSmovement) September 8, 2022
On December 10, 2012, the EU Foreign Affairs Council on the Middle East Peace Process declared that “all agreements between the State of Israel and the EU must unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, namely, the Golan Heights, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.”
This clause was reaffirmed in June when the EU, Egypt, and Israel signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation related to trade, transport, and export of natural gas to the European Union. Asked by European parliamentarians about the absence of a territorial clause in the MoU, the Commission clarified the EU’s position.
Egypt, Israel, and the European Union have signed a deal to boost shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) to EU member states, Sky News Arabia reported on Wednesday. Brussels hopes that the move will help it to reduce energy dependence on Russia.
Report https://t.co/SZ26Gx3nNe pic.twitter.com/rIDugmOcNN
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) June 19, 2022
“The EU is strictly prohibited, also in the implementation of a non-binding instrument, from acting in a way which would amount to recognize the illegal Israeli occupation,” the Commission said, adding that this “… entails that Israeli supplies of natural gas as per the implementation of the memorandum of understanding may not originate from resources appropriated from Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.”
BNC says that in practice the EU is granting recognition and assistance to the illegal Israeli occupation by seeking to facilitate European access to Israeli fossil gas-based energy through its various initiatives.
(MEMO, PC, SOCIAL)
