A Turning Point in Brussels: Former Diplomats Call for Sanctions as Europe Wrestles with Gaza
There are moments when the air in a city like Brussels thickens with politics—the sort of moments that smell faintly of espresso, paper, and something heavier: urgency. This week, more than 300 former European Union and national ambassadors, together with ex-EU officials, delivered one such jolt. In a joint letter addressed to EU institutions and the leaders of all 27 member states, they demanded immediate suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and targeted sanctions on members of the Israeli government. They urged 13 holdout EU countries to join 147 United Nations members already recognising the State of Palestine. It was a rare, ringing plea from the diplomatic corps that raised the stakes of a debate otherwise confined to committee rooms and press briefings.
“We cannot stand idly by, watching Gaza reduced to rubble and its inhabitants to destitution and starvation,” said former EU Ambassador Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff on behalf of the co-signatories. “Action needs to be taken urgently to preserve life, end the military onslaught on Gaza, secure the return of all hostages and move to governance arrangements that allow for a swift return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza.”
The letter and what it asks for
This is the fourth such intervention from a cohort of former diplomats who once wore their countries’ colors abroad. Their asks are blunt and specific: suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement—which forms the legal backbone of trade, research and institutional cooperation between Brussels and Jerusalem—impose targeted sanctions on Israeli officials. They also call for emergency UN General Assembly and Security Council meetings to adopt measures addressing “multiple violations of international law” and encourage EU backing for a Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution.
The diplomats’ appeal is framed in legal and moral terms. But it’s also a practical call to action: in their view, halting parts of formal cooperation and applying financial pressure will not only be a moral statement but a tool to reopen space for diplomacy.
From Strasbourg’s hemicycle to the streets
Across the Rhine in Strasbourg, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used her State of the Union address to push Brussels toward some of these measures. “What is happening in Gaza has shaken the conscience of the world,” she told Members of the European Parliament, invoking images of mothers clutching lifeless children and people begging for food. “Man-made famine can never be a weapon of war.” She pledged to propose sanctions on extremist settlers in the West Bank and suggested suspending the trade element of the Association Agreement—echoing the diplomats’ demands.
In the corridors of the Parliament, the mood was a mix of anger and exhaustion. “People are asking how much worse things must get before there’s unity,” von der Leyen acknowledged. In a tone both urgent and defensive, she insisted Europe must lead: not only in humanitarian aid—”our support far outweighs that of any other partner”—but in defending the principles of the post-war order.
Money on pause, but not everything
Practical steps are already being sketched. The European Commission confirmed it will put some financial support to Israel on hold—without touching funds earmarked for Israeli civil society or Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. Brussels says the funding specifically intended to foster bilateral relations amounts to roughly €6 million per year across programmes and that this stream will continue through 2025–27 before suspension. Around €14 million in ongoing projects will be paused as the Commission evaluates institutional cooperation and regional programmes.
For diplomats who have watched the EU run on incrementalism, these are meaningful moves. “It’s a calibrated pressure,” one senior EU official told me on condition of anonymity. “Not a severing—yet. But enough to indicate real consequences.” Others worry the measures may still be too little, too late.
Voices from the ground and the wider world
Letters and speeches matter, but so do people. In a Gaza neighborhood reduced to skeletons of buildings, a teacher named Amal described a classroom that once held 30 children and now shelters a single family, displaced repeatedly. “We teach children to dream,” she said softly in a phone call, “but how do you teach hope when the classroom keeps disappearing?”
Across the West Bank, an Israeli farmer whose land abuts a growing settlement spoke of fear and frustration. “We were raised on the idea of security,” he told me. “But security for some shouldn’t mean denying a people a state. This spiral hurts everyone.”
Legal experts say the diplomats’ call leans on concrete arguments. “Targeted sanctions can be legally justified under international law when there is grave breach of humanitarian norms,” said Dr. Leila Haddad, a specialist in international humanitarian law. “But they must be carefully designed to avoid collective punishment and to protect humanitarian access.” Her warning underscores the thin line between pressure and punishment in sanctions policy.
Europe’s strategic moment?
Ms von der Leyen did more than critique the conflict; she tied the debate to a broader project. “This must be Europe’s independence moment,” she said—an insistence that the EU needs to assert autonomy in technology, energy, defence and diplomacy. The message is clear: Europe cannot be the world’s moral voice if it is divided and dependent. Her speech also referenced global pressures—from Russian drone incursions into Poland to the ongoing war in Ukraine—and highlighted EU aid to Kyiv, which she put at nearly €170 billion in military and financial support so far.
“Do we have the stomach to fight?” she asked MEPs—a rhetorical dare that nods to Europe’s recent history of coming together in crisis, from the Covid recovery package to support for Ukraine. But the Gaza debate also reveals how hard unity is to achieve when member states differ on legal recognition, strategic interests and domestic politics.
What happens next — and why you should care
Policymaking is an exercise in consequences. If Brussels suspends the trade element of the Association Agreement, the move will be symbolic and practical: trade ties, research collaborations and institutional exchanges could be affected. Sanctions targeted at settlers or Israeli officials would be a political earthquake, altering Brussels’ relationship with a long-time partner and stirring transatlantic tensions with Washington.
Is that a risk worth taking? For the diplomats who signed the letter, the calculation is moral and strategic: stronger pressure might open the door to renewed governance in Gaza under the Palestinian Authority, the return of hostages, and a revival of the two-state pathway. For sceptics, the worry is that punitive steps will harden positions and deepen suffering.
So let me ask you: when international institutions hesitate in the face of human suffering, what should give way—principle or pragmatism? When collective conscience collides with complex geopolitics, which do we choose? These aren’t theoretical questions. They will shape lives, borders, and the credibility of the rules-based order for years to come.
Europe appears to be at an inflection point. Whether it acts—and how it acts—will tell us much about its ability to translate values into leverage, and about the kind of world order we all want to inhabit: one where laws and human dignity matter, or one where power alone writes the rules.
