Belgium bans imports from Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine

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It is the latest among a small but fast-growing group of European countries acting alone on a question still unresolved at EU level. The decision came at the government’s final cabinet meeting before the summer break, the Belgian News Agency (Belga) reported on Saturday. The move fulfils a commitment made last year over the scale of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and its death toll. Earlier this week, Belgian foreign minister Maxime Prevot pressed EU counterparts at a closed-doors meeting in Brussels for a bloc-wide ban, accusing the European Commission of offering ministers “a bone to chew on” rather than a genuine plan to act. Belgium’s ban arrives as both a domestic pledge fulfilled and a signal to the EU leadership. The case for tighter controls was strengthened this year by a Global Echo Litigation Center investigation, which examined more than 30,000 export documents covering thousands of Israeli agricultural shipments to Europe. Roughly one in six contained goods grown in settlements in the occupied West Bank or Golan Heights, rising to nearly one in five among shipments bound for EU countries. Investigators found exporters routinely obscured the true origin of the produce, labelling it Israeli, blending it with genuine Israeli stock, or shipping it under addresses unconnected to where it was grown. The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner, buying close to 30 percent of its exports and accounting for nearly a third of its total trade in goods, worth 43 billion euros ($49bn) last year. Belgium joins a list of states no longer waiting for EU-wide action. Spain enshrined a ban in law last September, the Netherlands agreed to one in May and Slovenia adopted a similar measure earlier this year, though it has dramatically shifted its approach to Israel following the election of a more pro-Israel government. Differences between the EU’s 27 member states have made it difficult for the bloc to act decisively on the issue. Ireland’s parliament passed its own prohibition on July 15 , days before Belgium’s move. The wave of national bans follows efforts earlier this month by the EU to coordinate action among its member states. The European Commission reportedly circulated a paper to EU capitals setting out three options: an import ban, a licensing scheme, or high tariffs on settlement goods. However no decision was reached. Five former European officials, including ex-Italian prime minister Enrico Letta and former German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, published a joint call for the EU to adopt a bloc-wide ban. They argued that national bans like Belgium’s carry limited weight alone, since goods cleared through customs in one member state can move freely across the rest of the bloc. A ban, they wrote, would not amount to a sanction against Israel but would simply bring EU trade policy into line with restrictions it has applied before, including on conflict minerals and goods made with forced labour. Several EU countries, including Spain, Italy and Germany, have also acted to restrict arms exports to Israel over the war in Gaza. 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