Brussels, August 31st, 2026 – As the summer recess draws to a close, the European Coalition for Israel returns to Brussels this week for the first time since the Republic of Ireland took over the EU presidency on 1 July. Meanwhile, the European Foreign Affairs Council will meet in Wicklow, Ireland, for a two-day informal summit focused on strategic geopolitical discussions.
Despite its informal nature, the Irish Government has made it clear that it will continue to push for new sanctions against Israel, including a suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. However, the Irish campaign to isolate Israel economically and diplomatically encountered a new obstacle earlier in the summer when Janez Janša was elected as the new Prime Minister of Slovenia. Within weeks of the new government taking office, Janša announced that he would reverse the previous government’s anti-Israel policies and instead stand with Israel. In demonstrating his position, he blocked the adoption of a joint statement by the EU Foreign Ministers on 23 August, which sought to unanimously condemn Israel for announcing a plan to build houses in the strategic E1 area located between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adummim in Judea.
Lamenting the EU’s position, Janša wrote on X that “while the Brussels bureaucracy remains silent about the extermination of entire villages of Christians in Nigeria and the massacres of its own people by Hamas in Gaza, it reacts to an announcement by Israel that it will build some kind of a village.”
Speaking to the European Jewish Press on Friday, ECI Founding Director Tomas Sandell commended Janša for his stance, reiterating that “standing up for Israel and the Jewish people has always been a minority position in Europe”. He added that “the current controversy surrounding the E1 corridor is trying to negate Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as its undivided and eternal capital, promised to it under international law in San Remo in 1920. Despite being the historic capital of the Jewish people for more than 3,000 years, it is also critical for the security of the modern State of Israel and necessary for establishing defensible borders”.
He concluded by noting that “almost three years after 7 October, the deadliest pogrom against the Jewish people after the Holocaust, the EU continues to be obsessed with the idea of a Palestinian state at all costs, despite repeated rejections by the Palestinians to sign any such peace agreements.”
The return to Brussels on Tuesday will mark the 25th anniversary of ECI’s work, which commenced during the first week of September 2001. Two years later, on Purim in 2003, the European Coalition for Israel was formally registered in Brussels. To mark its 25th anniversary, ECI will soon launch a new podcast and host a 25th anniversary policy conference and dinner event in Brussels later in the autumn.
