European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaking at the
Hudson Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, on Thursday |
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is infuriating the EU’s own foreign policy team by neglecting to mention the bloc’s support for Palestinian statehood in her public remarks on the Israel-Hamas war.
Adding to the pressure on her, some 800 EU staff have also taken the unusual step of writing to protest she is showing unjustifiable bias toward Israel in the conflict.
The latest flashpoint was a speech on Thursday at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, when she prioritized Israel’s right to defend itself after Hamas’ brutal assault on October 7 and neglected to mention the two-state solution that is a core part of the position of European countries.
One senior EU official commenting on the speech accused her of airing her own personal views and presenting an unbalanced view of where the EU stood on the crisis in the Middle East. Foreign policy “is decided by member states, by the Council. The rest, with full respect, are personal opinions, [they] can be very … legitimate, but they don’t represent the position of the European Union as such,” he complained. The position of the of the EU is “to reestablish the Mideast peace process as the only possible solution for this question,” he added.
Von der Leyen’s pro-Israel position had already run into strong cross-winds after a trip to the country last week, when she was heavily criticized by lawmakers for not calling on Israel to abide by international law with its embargoes and bombardments against Gaza, from where the Hamas attack was launched.
According to several officials, her relationship with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was already complicated and the crisis has widened the gulf as he was quick to question the legality of Israel’s restrictions against the population of Gaza.
A European Commission spokesman had no immediate comment in response to the senior official who criticized her Hudson Institute speech.
Adding to the sense of an internal EU rift over the war, a group of EU employees vented their frustration with von der Leyen in an open letter. The text was signed by 798 staffers working in Brussels and in the EU’s embassies around the world, according to a draft seen by POLITICO, dated Friday.
“We are concerned by the unconditional support by the Commission you represent for one of the two parties. This support is being expressed in an uncontrolled manner e.g. EC buildings lit up with the Israeli flag,” they wrote.
Since the Commission employs more than 30,000 staffers, some officials suggested the letter didn’t get much support.
The criticism certainly didn’t win the backing of Cristiano Sebastiani, president of Renouveau et Démocratie, a trade union representing EU employees. “I have full respect for the effort, they believed to do something useful,” he told POLITICO. But “I disagree because together with the colleagues who turned to me to ask for explanations, I find it quite unbalanced and oriented in an already so complex context” he added.
But in the meantime tensions rise.
An internal note sent to all Commission staff, and seen by POLITICO, said that on Sunday from 12 p.m. until 6 p.m. around 10,000 demonstrators in support of Palestinians were expected to gather near the Schuman roundabout where the EU buildings are.
The “police does not exclude the presence of violent demonstrators,” is said in the note.
Federica Di Sario contributed reporting