EU calls for diplomacy in time of war

EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas is convening the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers for a video conference on the Israel-Iran war on Tuesday. “The meeting will provide an opportunity for an exchange of views, coordination on diplomatic outreach to Tel Aviv and Tehran, and possible next steps,” an official told Euractiv’s Alexandra Brzozowski.
In today’s edition:

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“Diplomacy will not help – only strength,” EU Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said this month about Russia’s war in Ukraine. When it comes to Israel’s war with Iran, however, the messaging from Brussels is entirely different.
“Lasting security is built through diplomacy, not military action,” Kallas said over the weekend, during which she also spoke to Iran’s foreign minister.
Ursula von der Leyen, who talks about making Ukraine bristle like a “porcupine” before negotiating with Russia, urged Benjamin Netanyahu to de-escalate in a phone call last night.
The EU’s mantra is that the deadlocked negotiations to try and scale back the nuclear ambitions of Iran should continue. Israel’s view is that the nuclear talks have failed.
“For years, there was containment - it didn’t work,” Israel’s Ambassador to the EU Haim Regev told Euractiv on Sunday. “Everyone agrees Iran is a problem, the question is what you do about it,” he said. Though the endgame “will need to be accompanied by diplomatic means”, he added. “This is the only way to gain stability in the region."
Regev said that Germany, France, the UK, and Italy are giving Israel the strongest support on Iran and that the prospect of Iran getting nukes - which they’re “very close” to - is a serious threat to Europe.
Asked at a G7 press conference overnight whether she believes a diplomatic solution is preferable to the military conflict, von der Leyen said she and Netanyahu were “aligned in the fact that Iran should not have nuclear weapons” and "of course, I think a negotiated solution is, in the long term, the best solution”.
Gaza: Unprompted, von der Leyen also addressed the 19-month conflict in Gaza, saying that in her call with the Israeli PM she had “insisted and urged that humanitarian aid that is not reaching Gaza has to go into Gaza”.
“[Netanyahu] promised that this is the case and that this will be the case,” von der Leyen said. “So I will be working, coming back home from [the] G7, on having a close look at the facts, where our humanitarian aid is, how it reaches Gaza, whether it gets into Gaza, what we can do to make sure that humanitarian aid reaches the people in Gaza."
Echoing concerns from the World Food Programme, UN humanitarian aid chief, Tom Fletcher, last week warned that without “immediate and massively scaled-up access to the basic means of survival”, Gaza risks “a descent into famine, further chaos, and the loss of more lives”.

“The same type of Iranian designed and made drones and ballistic missiles are indiscriminately hitting cities in Ukraine and in Israel. As such, these threats need to be addressed together.” - Ursula von der Leyen speaking ahead of today’s G7 summit in Canada.

NO PHONES IN PARLIAMENT! Senior MEPs in Strasbourg today vote on rule changes that will ban MEPs from using their mobile phones to make or receive calls during the plenary, or in committee meetings. Under the new proposal, phones must be kept on silent at all official parliamentary gatherings. However, phones will not be entirely banned from meetings, meaning MEPs can continue ignoring the speaker.
PAKISTAN’S DIPLOMATIC COUNTER-OFFENSIVE: In the wake of the Indian foreign minister’s trip to Brussels, a Pakistani government delegation came to town to present its side of the recent war and put a dampener on the warming EU-India relationship. “India’s interests lie in them being given this license to violate international law at whim,” said Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, a former foreign minister in an interview with Euractiv.
He denied India’s charge that Pakistan was involved in the terror attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in April that lit the fuse of the latest war. “We’ve achieved the cease-fire but there’s a false sense of calm,” he said, portraying Pakistan as a bedrock for the international rules-based order which simply wants to solidify the lull in hostilities with India.
Is Pakistan jealous about the giant free trade agreement that Brussels is cooking up with New Delhi? “We’re completely confident in the relationship with the European Union,” he said, speaking last Thursday, before Israel attacked Iran. He also said that India’s threat to upend the Indus Water Treaty would pose an “existential” risk to Pakistan. Taking water from rivers that Pakistan has the majority of rights to “would be an act of war,” he said.

GERMANY
Berlin is blocking progress on negotiations on a new EU anti-corruption directive, ahead of another round of negotiations between the Council and Parliament tonight in Strasbourg.
FRANCE
Emmanuel Macron announced the opening of a consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, after a Sunday visit to the island clouded by the threat of US annexation.
MALTA
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola broke her silence and ruled out a move into Maltese politics over the weekend.
NETHERLANDS
Far-right leader Geert Wilders attacked the caretaker Prime Minister Dick Schoof online, after Schoof posted about the human suffering in Gaza. Wilders criticised Schoof for not thanking Israel for attacking Iran. “How could I ever nominate this man as prime minister?” he asked.

Brussels is under growing pressure to bite back at the food industry’s self-regulation on junk food advertising. Read more.
The ELA, a new European political alliance, officially launched in Porto over the weekend. Among the seven founding parties are French France Insoumise, Spanish Podemos, and Polish Partia Razem. Read more.

Belgian PM goes loopy over roundabout: Belgian PM Bart De Wever apologised last week after Brussels government politicians sent a begging letter to the European institutions asking for money to fund the Schuman construction works. He asked European leaders to ignore the letter, describing it as a “total humiliation”.
Work hard and you can be like me: The King of Spain Felipe VI will address graduates at the College of Europe on Friday.
Seen something amusing, interesting, or downright weird in EU politics? Send tips.

The European Investment Bank will sign a €1.6 billion deal this morning to finance an electrical interconnector between France and Spain in the Bay of Biscay. EIB President Nadia Calviño, EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen, and French and Spanish government representatives will be present at the signing in Luxembourg.
Energy ministers meet in Luxembourg to discuss the EU’s plan to phase out the use of Russian fossil fuels.
The European Parliament plenary kicks off in Strasbourg, with debates on the illegal use of spyware, and the human toll of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Reporters: Alexandra Brzozowski.

Editors: Vince Chadwick and Sofia Mandilara.