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Spain Becomes Fourth EU Country to Announce Sanctions Against Israel: Beginning of a Trend?

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Too little, too late? Yes, but surely better than nothing — unless, of course, it’s pure virtue signalling. 

Israel is beginning to learn that committing all manner of war crimes, including genocide, against a civilian population on a constant basis for almost two years eventually comes at a price. The country’s economy is experiencing what 130 of its top economists describe as a “spiral of collapse.” In the 50-country Nations Brand Index, Israel came rock bottom. 

As it continues to escalate its genocide in Gaza and its war crimes on the West Bank and other parts of the Middle East, some governments in Europe are finally, at long, long last, beginning to say “Basta!” Popular movements throughout the world have been hollering that word since Israel began its horrific pogrom in Gaza 23 months ago, many of them risking arrest.

That was followed by this:

Which was then followed by this:

On Saturday night, an estimated 180,000 people gathered in Mexico City’s Zócolo for the concert of Calle 13’s lead rapper, Residente. Led by a tearful Palestinian girl, ear-splitting chants of “Viva Palestina” and “Palestina Libre” rang out across the gargantuan square. Standing next to the girl and Residente was Palestine’s ambassador to Mexico, Nadya Rasheed.

In recent weeks, dockworkers in France, Italy and other countries have refused to load any arms components bound for Israel. As Labor Notes reports, this was no one-off protest:

It built on a decades-long tradition of internationalism, anti-militarism, and anti-imperialism among European dockworkers, including coordinated actions to block weapons to Saudi Arabia in 2019.

In the past week, Italian dockworkers have threatened to “shut down all of Europe” and block all shipments to Israel if communication with the latest aid flotilla bound for Gaza is lost. Speaking at a protest in the port of Genoa on behalf of the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), a syndicate of various grassroots unions in Italy, a dockworker said:

If we lose contact with our boats, with our comrades – even for just 20 minutes – we will shut down all of Europe. Our young women and men must come back without a scratch, and all this cargo, which belongs to the people and is going to the people, must reach its destination, down to the very last box. 13,000-14,000 containers leave this region every year for Israel. Not a single nail will leave anymore.

On that Freedom Flotilla:

Over the past weekend, Spain’s foreign minister José Manuel Albares said he would support expelling Israel-Premier Tech from the Vuelta a España cycling tour after the Israeli cycling team was targeted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators who disrupted the race. In addition, a Spanish chess tournament this week reportedly banned Israeli players from competing under their national flag, before reversing its decision.

The BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions) movement appears to be gathering steam with each fresh Israeli assault on Gaza, despite all the desperate attempts to suppress it on both sides of the Atlantic. Just as happened in Apartheid South Africa, it is Israel’s own vile actions that are driving the success of BDS.

Spain Imposes (Partial) Sanctions on Israel

On Monday, Spain became the fourth EU country to impose sanctions on Israel, after becoming one of the first Western European countries to recognise Palestine last year. The country’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez said Spain must be on the “right side of history”:

The government of Spain believes it is one thing to protect your country, protect your society and quite another to bombard hospitals and starve innocent children to death. What PM Netanyahu presented in October 2023 as a military operation in response to the atrocious terrorist attacks by Hamas has ended up turning into another wave of illegal occupations and an unjustifiable attack against Palestine’s civilian population — an attack that the UN Special Rapporteur and other leading experts have qualified as “genocide”.

The sanction measures adopted include the “legal consolidation of an arms embargo on Israel that has been applied de facto since October 2023”, reports El País. Some have contested this claim, including ourselves. A study by the Delàs Centre holds that Spain has bought arms from Israel worth more than $1 billion since the start of the Gaza offensive, while the government has claimed that some of the contracts included in that list were suspended.

Spain “will be banned from buying or selling weapons, ammunition and military equipment from/to Israel”, Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez announced on Monday morning. From the wording, it seems that the ban will not extend to IT security products, of which Israel is a global leader.

The sanctions package also prohibits Israel-bound ships and aircraft carrying weapons or fuel from calling at Spanish ports or entering Spanish airspace. This prohibition was already de facto in place: Spanish authorities have prevented the stopover of Israel-bound ships on at least three occasions in the past year, which even prompted the US Federal Maritime Commission to open a sanctioning file against Spain.

Madrid has also imposed a ban on the “the entry into Spanish airspace of State-owned aircraft carrying defence material bound for Israel”. This is a measure aimed in practice at the United States, whose military aircraft or those chartered by the Pentagon regularly transport military equipment to Israel via Europe.

However, it may be difficult for Spanish authorities to enforce these bans on maritime vessels and aircraft given they currently do not inspect ships and aircraft that NGOs claim to be suspected of being involved in arms trafficking to Israel.

Madrid has also pledged to increase aid to the Palestinian authority and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as well as impose an embargo on goods made in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. It will also ban anyone who has participated directly in Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza from entering the country.

In response, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Sánchez of trying to divert public attention from his domestic corruption scandals and qualified his measures as “antisemitic”.
Tel Aviv has also banned Labour Minister (and Deputy Prime Minister) Yolanda Diaz and Youth Minister Sira Rego, both from left-of-centre junior coalition partner Sumar, from entering Israel.

One thing the Sánchez government has ruled out doing is to sever diplomatic ties with Israel, arguing that it would cut Spain off from dialogue not only with the government of Israel, but also with civil society groups that oppose Netanyahu and, above all, with the Palestinian Authority.

That Makes Four

So far, four EU countries (out of 26) have announced the imposition of some form of sanctions on Israel: Ireland, Slovenia, Belgium and Spain. But to what extent will they actually impact Israel’s economy and ability to wage war?

Seven years ago, Ireland drew up the 2018 Occupied Territories bill ostensibly banning all trade with Israeli-occupied territories, but it is yet to enact it (h/t ed). Meanwhile, Dublin’s Trinity College recently became the first Western university to sever its institutional ties with the State of Israel, Israeli universities and companies headquartered in Israel,” in protest at the country’s “ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law”.

Anti-genocide protesters in Dublin last weekend called on the government to impose broader sanctions on Israel as well as enact and enforce its current sanctions. As Irish writer Naoise Dolan notes in The Guardian, the Irish government is not just passively useless in the face of genocide; it aids and abets the perpetrators:

The Irish government is not just passively useless in the face of genocide; it aids and abets the perpetrators. US military planes potentially carrying arms to Israel routinely pass through Ireland’s Shannon airport without inspection. A 2018 Occupied Territories bill originally intended to ban all trade with illegal Israeli settlements is now in its seventh year of legislative limbo, with endless dithering as to whether it should include services. By Israel’s choice, Ireland’s central bank is, since Brexit, the sole regulating authority in the EU that approves for trading Israel’s explicitly marketed war bonds for sale across the bloc. Selling bonds allows Israel to raise cash internationally that it is openly using to fund its campaign in Gaza.

Last week, Belgium’s government announced plans to recognise Palestinian statehood as well as impose “firm sanctions” on the Israeli government. The measures will include a ban on importing products from illegal settlements, a review of public procurement policies with Israeli companies and restrictions on consular assistance to Belgians living in illegal settlements.

Belgian PM Prevot has also said that  two “extremist” Israeli ministers — presumably in reference to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — would be designated “persona non grata” in Belgium alongside several “violent settlers” and Hamas leaders.

The other EU country that has taken action against Israel is Slovenia, which in early August became the first EU country to ban all arms trade with Israel, including transit and imports. Again, the move was largely symbolic since Slovenia claims to have stopped issuing export permits to Israel in October, 2023. From Euro News:

In a press release, the Slovenian government explicitly outlined its concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and denounced the EU’s inability to adopt such a measure because of “internal disagreements.”

The decision is above all symbolic, since the Slovenian government says it has not issued any arms export permits to Israel since October 2023 because of the conflict.

“All measures are on the table, we support, as we have done in the past, the suspension of the accession agreement with Israel, as well as trade sanctions and an arms embargo, sanctions against certain settlers, certain ministers and the Israeli government that supports violence”, declared Tanja Fajon, Slovenia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, on 15 July in Brussels.

“All measures must be taken as soon as possible, until there is a ceasefire, until the violence has stopped, until we have a resolution between the two countries”, she added.

Falling sales

Other European countries such as Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands have not gone as far as Slovenia, but have reduced arms sales to Israel.

Belgium officially banned arms exports to Israel following the 2008-2009 Gaza war.

Granted, these, for the main part, are relatively small-scale customers or suppliers for Israel’s military industrial complex. However, the overall trend may well be nonetheless be disquieting for a country whose economy is grappling with a mass exodus of talent, leading to acute job shortages; all the damage sustained to critical infrastructure during the 12-day war with Iran; and the financial strains resulting from fighting so many wars on so many different fronts.

As UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese notes in the clip below, Israel’s economy has essentially been kept afloat by Western banks, charities and universities since October 2, 2023.

However, what if the trend of Western countries announcing sanctions against Israel accelerates? What if more EU countries take similar unilateral action, given the EU has shown itself to be woefully incapable of concerted action against Israel even as the country intensifies its genocide of Gaza?

As the death toll in Gaza rises, growing numbers of protesters have hit the streets across Europe to demand action from their respective governments. Even the commission vice-president and Spanish socialist Teresa Ribeira has called Israel’s assault on Gaza a “genocide”. Yet every attempt to agree on unified action to pressure Israel to change course has led nowhere, with countries like Germany and Hungary often blocking the way.

“It is clear that, in the eyes of the public, the credibility of the European Union’s foreign policy on this particular issue is collapsing,” Prevot said.

And it is likely to collapse even further after Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual “state of the union” speech in the EU Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday. As EU Observer reports, the word “Gaza” is mentioned only once in the 69-page scene-setter for the German politician’s speech, published by the EU Commission:

“The situation remains severe”, her online booklet said, while boasting of the EU being “the biggest international donor” of aid to Palestinians…

By… contrast, the Ukraine war featured on 21 out of 69 pages in von der Leyen’s pre-speech pamphlet…

And Palestine will be the number one topic on the world stage at the 80th UN General Assembly in New York, which formally begins also on Tuesday, and at which EU states Belgium, France, and Malta, as well as Western allies Australia, Canada, and the UK, are to recognise Palestinian sovereignty, making irreversible history.[1]

The fact that it has taken 23 excruciating months of non-stop genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, beamed live and direct onto everyone’s devices, to finally get some (but by no means all) Western European states to recognise Palestinian statehood — when much of Palestine looks like the picture below, i.e. unrecognisable — is a disgrace.

The fact that during that same period just four of the EU’s 27 Member States have announced  (limited) sanctions against Israel is no less shameful. The same goes for the fact that Israel is still able to participate in most, if not all, sporting and cultural events with its European counterparts.

If the EU lost its head in Ukraine, it lost its soul (or at least what remained of it) in Gaza — as even Josep Borrell has conceded, admittedly months after leaving his post as the EU’s chief diplomat/head gardener.

That being said, what Slovenia, Belgium and Spain have done, while being a gross example of doing far too little, far too late, is still surely better than nothing —  unless it’s all virtue signalling meant to obfuscate a darker reality.[2] It’s certainly better than what the US, the UK and Germany have been doing in terms of enabling the genocide to this day. If this is the beginning of a genuine trend, one can only hope it accelerates fast.

 

[1] Lest we forget, VdL breached her mandate as EU Commission president in the early days of Israel’s Gaza offensive by lending full EU approval to the offensive despite the fact she has no authority in foreign affairs matters. VdL faced a barrage of criticism within EU institutions, including by the Commission’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, as well as in some European capitals, for her early unqualified support for Israel.

Following her visit to Israel in October, 2023, she was accused in a letter signed by 842 EU staffers of turning a blind eye to Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. The letter accused VdL of giving “a free hand to the acceleration and the legitimacy of a war crime in the Gaza Strip”. It also warned that the EU is “losing all credibility” as well as its status “as a fair, equitable and humanist broker,” while ripping into VdL’s “patent” double standards over what is currently unfolding in Palestine and events in Ukraine.

[2] As NC reader vao points out in the comments, Ireland, Slovenia and Spain were among 15 signatories of the so-called “New York Call” at the UN General Assembly in July. In the joint statement, the 15 countries state their position regarding the discussions on the Palestine-Israel conflict to be held this month, which could have been written by Israel’s attorney general. The countries, including Ireland, Slovenia and Spain (emphasis my own):

[…] Condemn the heinous and antisemitic terrorist attack of October 7th, 2023;
Demand an immediate ceasefire, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages of Hamas, including the remains, as well as ensuring unhindered humanitarian access;
[…]
Welcome the commitments made by the President of the Palestinian Authority on June 10th where he (i) condemns the October 7th terrorist attacks (ii) calls for the liberation of hostages and disarmament of Hamas (iii) commits to terminate the prisoner payment system (iv) commits to schooling reform, (v) commits to call for elections within a year to trigger generational renewal (vi) accepts the principle of a demilitarized Palestinian State.
[…]
Urge countries who have not done so yet to establish normal relations with Israel, and to express their willingness to enter into discussions on the regional integration of the state of Israel.
Express our determination to work on an architecture for the “day after” in Gaza which guarantees the reconstruction of Gaza, the disarmament of Hamas and its exclusion from the Palestinian governance.

As vao notes, the statement does not even allude to such elements as:

  1. The liberation of Palestinians held incommunicado in Israeli jails;
  2. The retreat of Israeli forces from the Gaza strip;
  3. Reparations by Israel for the damage caused to Palestinians;
  4. Legal proceedings against Israeli leaders for various crimes against international law (war crimes, crime of genocide, crimes against mankind, etc).

 

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15 comments

  1. ed

    In June, Ireland became the first EU Member State to ban trade with Israeli-occupied territories,

    I think you are giving Ireland too much credit, nothing has been banned so far. The OTB was voted through the Dail in 2018, and successive governments have been dragging their heals on actually implementing it since then. A much watered down bill might be getting implemented In Jan 2026, but i wouldn’t be surprised if they found more ways to drag it out.

    Reply ↓
  2. vao

    On the other hand, Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia all signed the “New York call”, a joint declaration by 15 countries stating their position regarding the discussions on the Palestine-Israel conflict to be held this very September and where they

    […] Condemn the heinous and antisemitic terrorist attack of October 7th, 2023;
    Demand an immediate ceasefire, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages of Hamas, including the remains, as well as ensuring unhindered humanitarian access;
    […]
    Welcome the commitments made by the President of the Palestinian Authority on June 10th where he (i) condemns the October 7th terrorist attacks (ii) calls for the liberation of hostages and disarmament of Hamas (iii) commits to terminate the prisoner payment system (iv) commits to schooling reform, (v) commits to call for elections within a year to trigger generational renewal (vi) accepts the principle of a demilitarized Palestinian State.
    […]
    Urge countries who have not done so yet to establish normal relations with Israel, and to express their willingness to enter into discussions on the regional integration of the state of Israel.
    Express our determination to work on an architecture for the “day after” in Gaza which guarantees the reconstruction of Gaza, the disarmament of Hamas and its exclusion from the Palestinian governance.

    The declaration is short, just read it in its entirety. It does not even allude to such elements as:
    1) the liberation of Palestinians held incommunicado in Israeli jails;
    2) the retreat of Israeli forces from the Gaza strip;
    3) reparations by Israel for the damage caused to Palestinians;
    4) legal proceedings against Israeli leaders for various crimes against international law (war crimes, crime of genocide, crimes against mankind, etc).

    In other words: this is exactly what Israel wants. It is almost as if the declaration had been written by Gideon Saar and taken as is by those 15 governments.

    The declaration was published on 2025-07-29; to my knowledge, none of Spain, Ireland, or Slovenia has disavowed it. To me, their belated arms embargoes against Israel smack of an attempt to whitewash their active and passive complicity with what has been going on in Gaza and in the West Bank, while quietly furthering the strategic goals of Israel by diplomatically hamstringing the Palestinians at the UNO.

    Reply ↓
    1. Nick Corbishley Post author

      Thanks, vao. Have just inserted the mother of all footnotes with a very big hat-tip your way. I knew Sánchez was cynical but I didn’t realise until today just how.

      Reply ↓
    2. Ignacio

      Well, that was 2023 and we are now in 2025 even if that declaration has been published now. Then, Sánchez followed the current, now he seems to timidly go in the other direction like the Casiquiare river which can flow in the direction of Amazonas or Orinoco alternatively. There is a part in the New York Call that you didn’t quote and provides some nuance (the second paragraph) and diverges from Israel diktat:

      “Reiterate our unwavering commitment to the vision of the two-State solution where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders, consistent with international law and relevant UN resolutions, and in this regard stress the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority”

      I think we should boycott the participation of Israel teams (Football, basketball…) in European tournaments. Forever.

      Reply ↓
  3. The Rev Kev

    I can see this ramping up over time and it will not matter how many countries are threatened by Trump with sanctions as it will continue to escalate. The elites like Starmer and VdL may be fully in Israel’s corner but that corner will shrink more and more over time as more and more countries join this movement. Actually I can see the US using AI to identify any social media accounts that are pro Palestinian and anti Israel so that they will be denied visas to the US. Can’t have the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympics show the Israeli team being booed and hissed as they enter the stadium.

    Reply ↓
    1. Carolinian

      Whatever Israel was in the beginning it has turned into a laboratory exploring methods for the few to control the many (not just its own Arabs but the entire region). Going by the above the “many” worldwide are beginning to suspect the probable truth that the few who rule them are taking notes. Here in the US I don’t think Trump gives a rip about antisemitism but sees the charge as his own useful “hate speech” weapon to use against those he doesn’t like. Starmer and many across the pond are taking notes on his notes.

      Here’s suggesting it’s all a delusion on the part of the elites. Guillotines are easy to build and history can repeat.

      Reply ↓
  4. Mikel

    Also, people will see how much support is being lost by watching what happens in Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran (to name a few targets – with more on the list).

    Hopefully, these actions will more immediately save lives.
    But there is a cooordinated, methodical expansion that needs to be addressed.

    Reply ↓
  5. JohnA

    In dear old Zionist owned Blighty, departing Foreign Minister Lammy has announced “The UK has not concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza “.

    So that is Starmer, Lammy et al off the hook for continuing to supply arms to Israel, run reconnaissence flights from Cyprus over Gaza, to ban Palestine Action as a ‘terrorist organisation’ and arrest anyone and everyone carrying a sign saying they support Palestine Action, or even Plasticine Action.
    Black is white, down is up, Alice through the Looking Glass rides again.

    Reply ↓
  6. Clueless Joe

    Well, if a Western country wants to take sanctions against Israel, it’s quite easy. No need for work, just copy-paste the hundreds of sanctions that have been taken against Russia and apply every single one of them on Israel. Job done.
    That none has done so, and none is going to do so soon, is all that’s needed to incriminate them all as hypocrites and complicit to the genocide.

    Reply ↓
  8. James McFadden

    In “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This”, Omar El Akkad brings clarity to the Western public and journalistic blindness and denial with regards to Palestine, along with capturing the monstrous actions and hypocrisy of both Democratic and Republican politicians. Western liberalism is shown to be a mask attempting to hide a vacuous culture whose only motive is self-interest. Here are a few quotes:

    “This is an account of a fracture, a breaking away from the notion that the polite, Western liberal ever stood for anything at all.”

    “Waiting on a Western judicial institution to cast judgment on a killing spree financed and endorsed by the West means, inevitably, watching a disjointed ballet of impossible reconciling. The narrative … demands moral purity … The reality is that an ally of the West is killing civilians by the tens of thousands and it would be politically inconvenient to call this wrong now when for months, years, and decades it has been deemed perfectly fine.”

    “There was a time, mostly forgotten now, when almost every centrist institution in this country bent over backward to describe Donald Trump’s appeal as a function of some kind of “economic anxiety.” The alternative—that millions of Americans want desperately for people who don’t look and live and believe the way they do to suffer without end—was too unpleasant to consider, too much of an indictment of something bigger than one man’s campaign.”

    “It is an admirable thing, in a politics possessed of a moral floor, to believe one can change the system from the inside, that with enough respectful prodding the establishment can be made to bend, like that famous arc, toward justice. But when, after decades of such thinking, decades of respectful prodding, the condition one arrives at is reticent acceptance of genocide, it is not at least worth considering that you are not changing the system nearly as much as the system is changing you?”

    “But to say this—that mainstream liberal parties will never develop a moral compass until they are punished for not having one—produces a level of antagonistic vitriol unmatched in almost any other context.”

    “There is something stomach-churning about watching a parade of Biden administration press secretaries offer insincere expressions of concern for Palestinians as the same administration bankrolls their butcher.”

    Reply ↓

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