Spain to impose sanctions on West Bank settlers after EU fails to reach unanimity

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - Spain’s foreign affairs minister announced on Monday that Spain will impose unilateral sanctions on violent West Bank settlers after the bloc failed to reach unanimity on the measure in Brussels.

Jose Manuel Albares said that while 26 of the 27 states agreed on the sanctions at the Foreign Affairs Council, full consensus was needed to pass the measure.

On the other hand, he said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell accepted Spain’s petition for the bloc to review its association agreement with Israel on the basis of potential violations of international humanitarian law.

The conclusions of the review should be presented in the next Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels in March, he said.

Albares told journalists that Borrell said the EU foreign ministers will then be asked to decide on a “political guide” for the next steps regarding the relationship with Israel.

He also announced that Spain is preparing a new financial package to continue supporting the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), on top of the emergency €3.5 million ($3.7 million) Spain sent after many Western nations began cutting funding over an accusation that some of its members were involved in the Oct. 7 attack.

“Without UNRWA, the fates of many of the 6 million Palestinian refugees it helps is doomed,” he said. “Spain will completely oppose the suspension of funding for the organization. Today, more than ever, the funding is needed.”

Albares said he also pushed for the EU to call for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, which he said is even more urgent due to the looming threat of an Israeli military expansion into the densely populated city of Rafah.

“This has the potential to extend to the West Bank and Lebanon, which would be totally out of control,” he said. “There’s not a single day that I don’t work with my EU colleagues and others in the region to achieve this cease-fire and the definitive peace agreement, which is a Palestinian state.”

Albares added that his ministry is not preparing for the trip of Spanish Labor Minister Yolanda Diaz to Palestine. Last week, she announced she was visiting her Palestinian counterpart, saying it was urgent for Spain to move from words to concrete actions.

Diaz is the head of Sumar, the junior coalition party in Spain’s progressive coalition government.