An announcement that did not please Israel. Spain will ask the European Union on Tuesday to break its association agreement with Israel considering that its government “violates international law”, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced this Sunday during an electoral rally in Andalusia (south). “It’s as simple as that,” he added.
In response, the head of Israeli diplomacy Gideon Saar denounced, in Spanish on “We will not accept a hypocritical reading of someone who establishes a relationship with totalitarian regimes that violate human rights like Turkey [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, the Venezuela of [Nicolas] Maduro,” he wrote. “A government,” he continued, that “receives thanks from the brutal Iranian regime and terrorist organizations, and which has worked to spread anti-Semitism.”
A request from Spain not unprecedented
The association agreement between the European Union and Israel, which entered into force in 2000, includes a clause making the relationship subject to respect for human rights. Spain first questioned the agreement in February 2024, when Pedro Sánchez and the then Irish Prime Minister sent a joint letter to the European Commission. This letter requested an assessment of Israel’s compliance with its human rights obligations following the start of the war in Gaza.
Since then, Pedro Sánchez has gradually hardened his position on this subject, particularly with the war in Lebanon, until his declaration this Sunday. The latter follows a letter sent to the Commission on Friday by Ireland, Slovenia and Spain, requesting that “the EU Israel association agreement be examined at the next meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council”.
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