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STRASBOURG — European parliamentarians on the right and left of its political center sparred over the European Union’s response to Israel’s war against Hamas, fanning an ongoing dispute over the EU’s disjointed foreign policy messaging.
EU leaders are meeting via videoconference on Tuesday evening to get a grip on a common stance. The informal summit follows a chaotic week where the EU struggled to coordinate geopolitical pronouncements related to the killing of 1,300 people in Israel by Hamas gunmen, and Israel’s response in Gaza which has killed more than 2,800 Palestinians.
The European Commission quashed an apparently unilateral decision by Hungarian Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi to suspend Palestinian aid. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen then faced criticism for a perceived pro-Israel bias during a last-minute a trip to the Middle Eastern country on Friday.
“When you travel to countries in conflict, you have to go with an objective, and the goal cannot be just to go and have your photo taken there,” said Iratxe García, the leader of the center-left Socialists and Democrats faction in the European Parliament, doubling down on her criticism over the weekend.
“There are times where you can be more useful but less visible and make a greater contribution to solving the conflict,” García said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Von der Leyen traveled to Israel with her ally Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, both of whom belong to the center-right European People’s Party (EPP). Metsola told the Parliament plenary Monday she went there not just to show solidarity, but also “to emphasize that we must keep looking for solutions for the humanitarian consequences in Gaza.”
“It was a message that I made and will keep making,” Metsola said.
It wasn’t until Sunday — after criticism began to bubble up — that von der Leyen deflected criticism, on the trip releasing video footage of her speaking about the need to “care for the Palestinian people” along with a decision to triple EU financial aid to the Palestinian Authority late Saturday.
EPP chief Manfred Weber deflected attention from the trip of the two EPP heavyweights, and instead hit out at Spanish socialist Josep Borrell, who leads the European External Action Service.
Weber criticized EU’s top diplomat for taking a trip to China while the Middle East is “on fire” and others, such as United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, came to the region.
“I cannot understand why our high representative [for foreign affairs] Borrell is traveling in such a moment,” Weber said. “Again Europe is absent,” he said.
Weber described the visit of von der Leyen and Metsola as “not at all an EPP trip.” Rather, he said, it was good that “Europe was there.”
Borrell, who has never visited Israel during his time as head of the EU’s foreign policy, will address the European Parliament on Wednesday and debate with von der Leyen and members of European Parliament. MEPs are hashing out their own stance on the Israel-Hamas war in a nonbinding resolution.
García praised her fellow socialist Borrell, “who is leading the European Union with regard to its position and making clear the need to comply with international and humanitarian law.”
The EPP is making clear that it wants the focus to remain on the terror attacks of Hamas from October 7, which led to more than a thousand civilian casualties and some 200 hostages being taken to Gaza.
While expressing solidarity with the victims in Israel, European socialists have focused on the need for Israel to deescalate, abide by international rules of warfare and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
In a sign that global attention is now shifting to casualties in Gaza and the devastation a ground invasion would bring, EU lawmakers voted to amend the title of the debate Wednesday to: “Israel’s right to defend itself in line with humanitarian international law and the humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
Some European parliamentarians from the Greens, Socialists and Democrats, Renew, and Left groups are also turning on Commissioner Várhelyi — who famously called MEPs “idiots” this year — to resign or be stripped of his job after the aid debacle, Brussels Playbook reported.
But Greens co-president Philippe Lamberts said that now is not the time to censure the entire Commission, which would be the Parliament’s only option to force commissioner resignations. Meanwhile, Weber sidestepped a question about Várhelyi’s future.
Renew Europe leader Stéphane Séjourné said he was not asking for Várhelyi’s resignation, but said his actions were “unacceptable” and may have weakened the EU institutions’ approach to the conflict.
“I think there’s a problem with that commissioner,” Séjourné said.
Gregorio Sorgi, Suzanne Lynch and Jacopo Barigazzi contributed reporting from Brussels.
