European Commission Considers Initiative to Suspend Partnership Agreement with Israeli Occupation

Brussels, November 12 (KUNA) -- The European Commission announced on Thursday that it intends to examine a citizens’ initiative calling for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement in light of human rights violations in Palestinian territories. The initiative has gathered more than 1.1 million signatures, surpassing the minimum threshold required for a formal review.

In a statement, the Commission said it would meet with the initiative’s organizers in the coming weeks to discuss it in detail, and that the European Parliament would later hold a public hearing on the matter.

The petition, submitted by the European Left Alliance—a umbrella organization comprising 11 left-wing political parties—exceeded the minimum requirement under the European Citizens’ Initiative mechanism, which mandates at least one million signatures from EU citizens in at least seven member states. This obliges the Commission to examine the demands and provide an official response.

This initiative is among the fastest European Citizens’ Initiatives to reach the one-million-signature milestone. It is also part of a small number of initiatives that have successfully met the required conditions; only 14 out of 136 registered initiatives since the mechanism’s launch more than a decade ago have reached this threshold.

The Commission is scheduled to deliver its response by May 2027, clarifying whether it intends to take action in response to the demands outlined in the initiative. The initiative calls for suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, including trade relations and political dialogue, arguing that the Israeli occupation government has failed to fulfill its obligations to prevent genocide in the Gaza Strip and to respect human rights.

The Association Agreement, signed in 1995 and entered into force in 2000, constitutes the main legal framework governing trade, political, and cooperative relations between the two sides. The European Union is Israel’s largest trade partner, accounting for about one-third of its total global goods trade in 2025, according to EU data.

This initiative comes amid growing European criticism of Israeli policies in the context of the war in Gaza and Lebanon, which has sparked divisions among member states regarding the future of relations with the occupying entity, particularly concerning the suspension of the Association Agreement and the imposition of restrictions on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. (End) Arn / M.M.J