Belgium approves ban on imports from Israeli settlements as EU remains deadlocked

Belgium has approved a ban on importing goods produced in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The decision was taken at the federal government's final cabinet meeting before the summer break, according to the Belgian News Agency. It makes Belgium one of a small but growing number of European countries to act unilaterally on the issue.

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The move fulfils a commitment made last year amid concern over Israel's bombardment of Gaza and the scale of the death toll there. Belgian foreign minister Maxime Prevot had pressed EU counterparts earlier this week in Brussels for a bloc-wide ban, but ministers remain deadlocked. He accused the European Commission of offering little more than a token gesture rather than a real plan to act.

The Belgian decision comes as pressure has increased over the trade in settlement goods. A recent investigation by the Global Echo Litigation Center examined more than 30,000 export documents covering thousands of Israeli agricultural shipments to Europe. It found that roughly one in six contained goods grown in settlements in the occupied West Bank or Golan Heights, rising to nearly one in five among shipments bound for EU countries.

Investigators said exporters often obscured the true origin of produce by labelling it Israeli, blending it with genuine Israeli stock, or using addresses unrelated to where it was grown. The issue has become politically significant because the European Union is Israel's largest trading partner. The bloc buys close to 30% of Israel's exports and accounts for nearly a third of its total trade in goods, worth 43 billion euros, or $49bn, last year.

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That scale gives any change in settlement-trade policy potential economic and diplomatic weight, even when introduced by individual member states rather than the EU as a whole. Belgium now joins Spain, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Ireland in moving ahead with national measures while EU-wide agreement remains out of reach. Spain enshrined a ban in law last September, the Netherlands agreed to one in May, Slovenia adopted a similar measure earlier this year, and Ireland's parliament passed its own prohibition on 15 July.

The pattern reflects growing frustration among some governments over the pace of collective EU action on settlement trade. What remains unclear is how Belgium will implement the ban in practice and how broadly it will be enforced. It is also not yet clear whether the move will increase pressure on EU institutions to return to the issue or encourage more member states to follow suit.

For now, the decision marks a concrete national step in a wider European debate that is still unresolved at bloc level.

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