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Date Published: 12/04/2024

Spain PM meets Irish taoiseach and other European leaders to discuss recognition of Palestinian state

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The EU countries want to formally recognise Palestine as a nation state as a way of forcing Israel to meet its humanitarian rights obligations

Spain PM meets Irish taoiseach and other European leaders to discuss recognition of Palestinian state

Pedro Sánchez is a man on a mission. The President of the Spanish Government is on a tour of European countries this weekend trying to drum up support for recognition of the State of Palestine, something he wishes to achieve before the end of July this year.

He was in Poland this Thursday, April 11, at what he called a “high-level meeting convened by [President of the European Council] Charles Michel to set out Spain’s strategic vision and priorities for the EU for the next five years. We are building a Europe that is stronger and more secure, more competitive and prosperous, freer and more democratic”.

He hopes to get support from Poland’s PM Donald Tusk, as well as Norway’s Jonas Gahr Støre and Ireland’s Simon Harris, within the EU to grant recognition to Palestine of its status as a State in its own right, something he has stated he wants to do before July.

España y Noruega están firmemente comprometidas con alcanzar una solución política que, de una vez por todas, traiga la paz y seguridad en Oriente Medio.

Estamos de acuerdo en que solo la materialización de los dos Estados puede aportar una solución duradera a este conflicto.… pic.twitter.com/4JXwfM9r6d
— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) April 12, 2024

He has visited the Middle East to attend conferences on the Israel-Gaza conflict several times, and this Wednesday, during his appearance in the Congress of Deputies, once again condemned the deaths of more than 30,000 civilians in what he called Benjamin Netanyahu’s “disproportionate” response to the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 when 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed and hundreds taken hostage. He also called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas.

This Friday, Sánchez arrives in Dublin to become the first foreign premier to meet new Irish taoiseach Simon Harris after he became leader this Tuesday April 9.

Harris has echoed Sánchez’s words, and the pair hope to force the EU to assess Israel’s human rights obligations as a condition of their trade deal with the bloc.

“I believe the European Union must use all of the levers at its disposal,” he said. “I look forward to having the opportunity to discussing with Pedro the issue of the recognition of the state of Palestine and broader matters,” including a letter that the two countries have co-written asking the European Commission chief for an “urgent review” of whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations.

White House State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, when asked about the plans to recognise Palestine, said, “Each country must make its own decisions with respect to when and where it makes recognitions of this type.”

In the same breath, he assured that the US has always “firmly” supported the creation of a Palestinian state, but that it believes that “that is best achieved through dialogue and negotiation between the two parties and with other countries in the region”.

“That is what we are actively pursuing,” he added.

For its part, Israel’s foreign ministry released a statement this Thursday criticising the plans.

“After the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust… there are those in Ireland who persist on being on the wrong side of history.”

Within Spain, the government is trying to position itself as being one step ahead of history and of other EU partners in relation to the situation in the Middle East. Government sources point out that theirs was the first in the EU to call for a ceasefire, the first to demand that aid to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) be maintained, and the first to argue that the time had come to take the necessary steps to recognise the Palestinian state.

Image: Pedro Sánchez

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