Monitoring Report April 2019 - EU

With the Israeli elections just over and EU-elections around the corner, EU-Israel relations are facing a democracy-induced reshaping. While the Israeli side of things is likely to stay more or less unchanged and stable with Benjamin Netanyahu having won reelection for his fifth term in office, the outcome of the EU-elections is still an open question. Polls suggest though, that the two largest fractions in the current European Parliament (Christian Democrats and Social Democrats) are poised to lose some 40-50 seats each. With some new alliances forming especially on the right, the next European Parliament will be more diverse and the power and impact of the larger blocs is likely to lessen. What this means for EU-Israel relations remains yet to be seen, but many of the populist parties slated to gain more seats adhere to rather pro-Israel policies. Sebastian Kurz, Viktor Orbán and Matteo Salvini were the first to congratulate Benjamin Netanyahu after his reelection, they share and support many of his policy-approaches and view Israel under him as a natural ally. An the other hand it took German Chancellor Angela Merkel whose government proclaims support of Israel as Germany’s “Raison d’etat”, six days to congratulate Netanyahu and even then her congratulation contained the untimely spice of “advice” on how to solve the Middle East conflict.

If we want to feel the pulse of current EU-Israel relations, we ought to look at the greater picture and into some of the newer developments. There are three current trends, which show some antithetical processes inside EU-Israel relations and deserve a closer look, as they highlight the areas in which the current power struggle takes place ...

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