it is precisely for this reason that the debate has already been opened at the highest levels of the Commission on changing the way decisions are taken so that unanimity is not required for crucial decisions.<\/p>\nWritten by Ersi Papadaki<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
The relevant statements by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in fact came immediately after Orb\u00e1n’s electoral defeat in Hungary and after he had earlier blocked at the last summit the \u20ac90 billion loan the EU was preparing for Ukraine – apparently because of Moscow’s influence. <\/p>\n
Recall that at the moment the EU charter provides for unanimity in decisions on foreign policy, the European budget and enlargement,<\/b> meaning that if even one member state says “no”, then no decision can be taken centrally.<\/p>\n
The concern, then, at the highest levels of the Commission is logical and real, even if a “thorn in the side” of the EU, such as Orban, is gone. <\/p>\n
The attitude of Bulgaria’s election winner Rumen Radev will be of extreme interest in the coming period, as the now former president of the Balkan country and its new prime minister was previously known for his pro-Russian positions <\/b>and especially for his opposition both to EU aid to Ukraine and to his country’s recent accession to the Eurozone. <\/p>\n
So many fear that he may in the future react just like Orban, regardless of the relations he may or may not currently have with Moscow.<\/p>\n
There are, however, also… surprises. Like that of Pedro Sanchez, who seems to be a worthy contender for the title of… new agitator in the Commission. The Spanish prime minister has long since set his own policy on the war in the Middle East<\/b> and has not hesitated to even clash with the US, as he is in fact driven by his anti-Israel stance. <\/p>\n
To this end, therefore, reports are being reinforced that he is ready to ask the EU and other member states to suspend the Association Agreement with Israel in “retaliation” for the fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
The crucial question therefore is how far the Spanish PM can take it and whether his stance will upset Brussels<\/b> and thus affect the rest of the EU. <\/p>\n
According to Sanchez and what he said during a local campaign rally in Welva, his government will today formally call for the EU-Israel Association Agreement to be terminated, adding, however, that this does not mean that Spain is not friendly with Israel, but simply does not share the actions of the Netanyahu government, and for this reason he called on other European governments to support his initiative.<\/p>\n
A similar request was made in the recent past by Sanchez and supported by Ireland,<\/b> arguing that Israel’s stance in the Middle East violates certain articles of the Association Agreement with the EU. <\/p>\n
Remember, however, thatthe EU is Israel’s largest trading partner with over \u20ac45 billion in trade<\/b> and a possible suspension or termination of the agreement would have very significant economic and political consequences for both sides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are growing reports that Sanchez is ready to ask the EU to suspend the Association Agreement with Israel.
\nThe relief that …<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}