The subject is technical, but its political significance is strong. After twenty years of procrastination, the European Commission, responsible for international trade, has decided to better trace the import into Europe of goods produced in the Israeli colonies located in the occupied Palestinian territories and on the Golan Heights, Syrian territory.
In an announcement published on May 16, but which went almost unnoticed, the Commission is asking all importers of goods from the Jewish state to add a new code, “Y864”, to their customs declarations for goods produced in Israel. For Brussels, this territory is understood to be within the limits of the pre-1967 borders, ie before the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Products manufactured in the Israeli colonies installed in these areas cannot therefore benefit from this code, and the preferential customs duty that goes with it.
The European Union (EU) has never recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied territories. During the negotiation of the association agreement in the 1990s, Brussels had specified this rule, contested by Israel. Nevertheless, in 2004, Europeans and Israelis had found a technical arrangement so that Israeli exporters were content to specify the postal code and the place of manufacture of the products sent to Europe.
“Increased awareness”
Impractical, this paper declaration did not allow statistics to be produced. So much so that the EU does not have data on products imported from the colonies, as the executive acknowledges. According to several decade-old estimates by the World Bank and the Commission, between 1% and 2% of Israeli imports come from the settlements. In 2022, Europe imported 17.5 billion worth of Israeli products, potentially 175 million to 350 million euros from the settlements.
“These sums may seem modest, judge Martin Konecny, head of the NGO European Union Middle East Project. But, when we compare them to those of imports of Palestinian products, it is much more. Over the past five years, they have represented approximately 23 million euros each year. »
For the Commission, “This measure does not reflect any change in policy, but has been taken to help facilitate the tasks of declarants in the context of the implementation of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and the 2004 Technical Arrangement on rules of origin. »
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