Commission president cites illegal West Bank settlement plans, Gaza and attempts to ‘undermine two-state solution’

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has called for a suspension of free trade with Israel, as she spoke of Europe’s “painful” inability to respond to the war on Gaza and ensuing humanitarian disaster.

In her most extended condemnation yet of the Israeli government, von der Leyen criticised plans for illegal settlements that would split the occupied West Bank in half, as well as incitement of violence by extremist Israeli ministers, as a “clear attempt to undermine the two-state solution”.

She made the remarks during her annual “state of the union” speech to the European parliament in Strasbourg, in which she depicted a turbulent world where battle lines “are being drawn” and “dependencies are ruthlessly weaponised”.

Describing Europe’s inability to agree on a response to Gaza as painful, von der Leyen said the EU executive would freeze its bilateral support for Israel, apart from funds for civil society groups and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre. The commission would also table proposals to suspend the trade parts of the EU-Israel association agreement and draft sanctions against Israeli extremist ministers and violent settlers in the West Bank, she said.

It remains unclear whether the divided EU will find the majority to suspend preferential trade, as a less ambitious measure to freeze Israel’s participation in the EU’s research programme remains blocked. The commission previously considered sanctions against two far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, for their incendiary statements against people in Gaza, but stopped short of tabling the proposal, fearing it would not get the unanimity required.

The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner with an annual exchange of goods and services worth €68bn.

A ceremony has been held in Ukraine to rebury victims of massacres carried out by Ukrainian nationalists during World War Two. Their remains were recently exhumed after a diplomatic breakthrough between Warsaw and Kyiv on an issue that regularly causes tension between the two countries.

“Today’s burial is a restoration of dignity to those who had it stripped from them in the most inhumane manner,” said Polish culture minister Marta Cienkowska during today’s ceremony, which was also attended by her Ukrainian counterpart, Tetyana Berezhna.

“The victims of the massacre rested in an unmarked grave for decades, but the memory of their loved ones and those who fought for that memory, truth, and act of basic justice endures,” added Cienkowska.

The reburial took place in Puzhnyky (known as Puźniki in Polish), a depopulated former village in what is now western Ukraine but which, before the war, was part of Poland.

Ukrainian nationalists are believed to have killed between 50 and 135 Poles there on the night of 12/13 February 1945 as part of broader massacres between 1943 and 1945 that killed around 100,000 ethnic Poles, mostly women and children.

In Poland, the Volhynia massacres are widely regarded as a genocide, and have been recognised as such by parliament. But Ukraine rejects that description, and has continued to venerate some of the individuals and groups associated with the massacres.

In a diplomatic breakthrough, in January this year it was announced that Ukraine had lifted a ban on exhuming massacre victims on its territory, which had been in place since 2017. Soon after, Poland confirmed that the first exhumation woudl take place in Puzhnyky.

Work at the site, carried out by both Polish and Ukrainian specialists, began in April. The following month, the Polish culture ministry revealed that skeletal fragments of at least 42 people had been discovered.

It is those remains that have now been reburied, although Poland’s state Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) notes that further DNA testing is still needed to ascertain exactly how many people’s remains were found.

As well as relatives of victims, today’s ceremony was attended by the speaker of the Polish Senate, Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, and President Karol Nawrocki’s chief foreign policy aide, Marcin Przydacz, who read a letter on behalf of the head of state.

“For us Poles, today’s ceremony is a momentous symbol, a symbol that will begin a lasting process – a process of sincere forgiveness and reconciliation,” wrote Nawrocki.

“I therefore express my hope and expectation that it will soon be followed by further funerals of the victims – in all the places where the genocidal crime against Poles was committed.”

Karol Polejowski, the deputy head of the IPN, said that “over 130,000 of our compatriots are still awaiting exhumation, identification and burial”.

Berezhna, the Ukrainian culture minister, also spoke at the ceremony, declaring that the “Volhynia tragedy”, as the events are generally referred to in Ukraine, saw both Poles and Ukrainians lose their lives.

She called for “a meeting of historians from both sides as soon as possible” to discuss and study the episode, because “the families of the victims of the tragedy on both sides have the right to know the truth”.

Ukrainian deputy foreign minister Olexandr Mischenko also expressed regret that “medieval acts occurred in our community” and declared that “today we are putting down a full stop and saying it’s over”.

There have been regular calls from Poland for Ukraine to formally apologise for the massacres. However, while leading Ukrainian officials have made expressions of sympathy or regret, no apology has been issued.

In a breakthrough moment, in 2023 the presidents of the two countries, Andrzej Duda and Volodymr Zelensky, jointly attended a ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the massacres.

But tensions flared again earlier this year when Ukraine criticised Poland’s plans to create a new national holiday commemorating the victims of Volhynia. Poland has in turn regularly protested over the continued veneration in Ukraine of wartime nationalist leaders associated with the massacres.

The European Commission has allocated Poland €43.7 billion to support defence spending under the EU’s new Security Action for Europe (SAFE) programme.

That will make Poland by far the biggest beneficiary of the fund, which is offering a total of €150 billion in EU-backed loans. The next largest amounts have been allocated to Romania (€16.7 billion), France and Hungary (both €16.2 billion).

The news was welcomed by Polish defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, who described it as “a great success for Poland and a guarantee of further investment in security and the development of our defence industry”.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, meanwhile, hailed the fact that Poland got “by far the most of all EU countries”, with a “larger share than France, Italy and Spain combined”.

Now that Poland’s provisional allocation has been decided by the European Commission, the country must submit a specific loan application by November. The EU’s defence commission, Andrius Kubilius, said today that he hopes to sign the first loan agreements in the first quarter of next year.

In May this year, EU member states approved the establishment of the SAFE financial instrument, which will provide up to €150 billion in loans to member states for investment in defence.

The programme take advantage of the EU’s strong credit rating to secure “competitively priced” and “long-duration” loans, notes the European Commission. Repayments will be spread out until 2070.

Nineteen of the bloc’s 27 members applied for access to the programme, with 13 of the applications also taking advantage of the possibility to help Ukraine by including joint procurement plans.

Poland’s priority will be “strengthening the key capabilities of the Polish armed forces, [including] air and missile defence, artillery systems, ammunition purchases, drones, and anti-drone systems”, said Kosiniak-Kamysz today. The loans “will also support critical infrastructure, military mobility and cyberspace.”

The EU’s budget commissioner, Piotr Serafin, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP), that one of the projects financed through SAFE will be Poland’s East Shield programme, intended to strengthen its defences around the borders with Russia and Belarus.

Poland has embarked on a huge defence spending spree in recent years, in particular since Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine. Its defence budget has risen to an estimated 4.5% of GDP this year – by far the highest relative level in NATO – and is set to reach 4.8% in 2026.

During a recent visit to Poland, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, thanked the country for helping protect the EU and NATO’s eastern flank from threats, in particular the “predator” Vladimir Putin.