Simon Harris on EU Gaza action
🇮🇪🇪🇺 Ireland’s finance minister says Europe needs to stop talking about Gaza and start acting together. Simon Harris told Euronews that “the world in general is not doing enough,” urging EU countries to take collective action. The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner, yet proposals to suspend preferential trade and impose further sanctions have stalled amid divisions between member states. Harris wants Europe to turn its economic leverage into actual pressure on Israel. Writer: Lynn
Transcript (en)
I'm massively pro-European but I think when it comes to Gaza it's been disappointing that we had to put it mildly that more hasn't been able to be done at that coordinated level. Now really good work has been done in recent times. My colleague the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee has made significant progress at an EU level on a range of fronts and the Irish presidency has kept Gaza really to the fore. But what you say is also true, member states listening to their public are moving ahead. We would always rather see action at an EU level because we think it's more impactful. I think it's much more impactful. Now the European Union is a really large contributor in terms of aid and humanitarian assistance, but the world in general is not doing enough and not doing enough and no part of the world, including the European Union, can absolve itself from that in terms of the horror that's taking place.
