The Belgian news agency Belga reported on Saturday that the Belgian cabinet had approved a ban on importing products from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The agency stated that the federal government, during its last cabinet meeting before the summer break, decided to ban the import of products coming from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
This decision amends a royal decree issued on December 30, 1993, which regulates the import, export, and transit of goods and related technologies, to establish strict special rules for goods originating from Israeli settlements established in the West Bank of the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem.
The ban will be implemented within the existing prior authorization system, thus subjecting it to the licensing, control and penalties system currently in place in Belgium.
Under this mechanism, any import permit will be automatically rejected if "the documents indicate, or it can be presumed, that the goods to be imported originate from an Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories." The bill grants a 120-day transition period for compliance before it enters full force.
The Belgian move came after a meeting of EU foreign ministers on July 13, where ministers overwhelmingly supported imposing trade restrictions on settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law. A complete ban on imports of settlement products received the broadest support, but the lack of consensus among member states prevented a final EU-wide decision.
The deliberations in Brussels revealed a deep division among member states; while countries such as Ireland, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Slovenia are leading the charge for an immediate and comprehensive embargo based on the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion issued in July 2024, influential powers in the European Union such as Germany and Italy see a need to focus at this stage on the direct diplomatic track with the Israeli government rather than imposing a trade embargo.
The European dispute also extended to defining the legal classification of the measure itself and the mechanism for its adoption. According to the interpretation of the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union, a qualified majority of 15 out of 27 member states is sufficient to adopt such a decision, as a measure within the Common Trade Policy, without requiring the unanimous consent of all 27 member states. In contrast, Germany and other countries maintain that these restrictions are similar in nature to sanctions, which necessitates the unanimous approval of all 27 member states. This leaves the fate of the collective European decision uncertain, pending resolution of this procedural dispute.
Last May, the European Union imposed sanctions on four entities and three individuals for serious and systematic human rights violations committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
In an advisory opinion issued in July 2024, the International Court of Justice said that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and construction of settlements in the West Bank were illegal, and that states should take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that help perpetuate this situation.
It is worth noting that the West Bank has witnessed an escalation in attacks by the Israeli army and settlers since October 2023, resulting in the killing of 1,181 Palestinians and the injury of about 13,000, in addition to the arrest of about 24,000 Palestinians, while the Israeli authorities continue to confiscate thousands of dunams of Palestinian land for the benefit of settlement expansion and the establishment of new settlement outposts.
