Debate: Iran’s unprecedented attack against Israel, the need for de-escalation and an EU response
Date: WEDNESDAY, 24 APRIL 2024
Speaker: Josep Borrell Fontelles
Language: EN

On 13 April, Iran’s attack against Israel was unprecedented. It never happened before. It is the first time that Iran directly attacked Israel from its territory, with hundreds of drones and missiles. All this without forgetting the Israeli attack that preceded it, and we also condemned that when it happened. This aerial attack represents a major escalation of an already very tense situation in the region, where we have witnessed dangerous games of attacks and retaliations, retaliations and attacks. And I want to use the same words that United Nations Secretary-General Guterres used at the Security Council. He said, the region ‘is at the edge of an abyss’. Estamos al borde de un abismo, dijo el Secretario General. No son palabras huecas. Ciertamente, esta continua interacción bélica conduce a la región y, con ella, a todos nosotros a una situación muy peligrosa. Ahora, últimamente, parece que nos hemos movido un poco desde el borde del abismo después de que se fueran produciendo explosiones en Isfahán, Irán. Pero ninguno de los dos lados, ni Israel ni Irán, utilizó estas explosiones como un elemento nuevo de escalada. Pero este riesgo existe todavía y nuestra obligación es llamar a la contención para que la escalada no aumente el nivel de riesgo. Es una situación muy volátil, también en la frontera norte —entre Israel y Hezbolá—, donde hemos visto al Líbano otra vez en una situación muy frágil. Las Naciones Unidas advierten de que cualquier cálculo erróneo por una de las dos partes puede provocar otro conflicto. En todo caso, el nivel de intercambio de fuego en la frontera del Líbano ha alcanzado niveles que no se veían desde 2006. Los veintisiete líderes de la Unión Europea —y nosotros también en el ámbito de los ministros de Asuntos Exteriores— hemos enviado un mensaje… There is a political consensus to suspend the existing sanctions against Iran. The foreign affairs ministers in June were meeting together with the defence ministers. It took a political agreement that will be implemented in the next days. You know that to use the sanctions regime that we already have – because from time to time, people ask for something that we already have – we have a sanctions regime against Iran for providing drones to Russia. The sanctions regime can now be used to sanction the production and potential transfer of missiles from Iran to Russia – I am saying the potential transfer, but also the production itself – and also to target Iranian delivery of such weapons in the Middle East and the Red Sea region. You know what I’m talking about in the Red Sea region. We have a navy mission to try to protect the freedom of navigation. Let me add that sanctions are an important tool, and we have used them to send a clear message to Iran about the dangerous proliferation activities, aiming at the destabilisation of the region. However, I think that we have to understand that sanctions alone are not a policy. Sanctions are tools of a policy, and sanctions alone cannot deter Iran. This should be evident after years and years of international sanctions. Iran is, together with North Korea, the most sanctioned country in the world. Sanctions alone cannot solve the risk of escalation, and a place has to be given to diplomacy. Diplomatic action has to be equally important. I think this is a moment for diplomacy, to deploy maximum diplomatic efforts, to act to calm down the situation, and to ask everybody to play their part. EU Member States were in touch with key actors because the EU keeps open channels with all sides. That’s what we talked about at the G7 meeting, the ministers of foreign affairs meeting in Capri some days ago. And as you know, I am regularly in touch with the Iranian Foreign Minister in order to stress to him how deplorable are these attacks and warning that we are closer to a full regional conflict. In the past days, we also coordinated our efforts to reach out to Israel, to show restraint and to add up the Gulf countries to use their influence. We had a meeting with the ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Luxembourg – I think it was on Monday night, and immediately afterwards I came to Strasbourg to share with you the debate. This was an important occasion for the ministers of foreign affairs of the 27 and the ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council states to exchange about the situation in the Middle East. The spiral of attacks on counterattacks might have slowed down – that’s very good news – but the situation remains unstable and dangerous. Finally, while we pay all the necessary attention to the Iranian attack on Israel and the risk of escalation, let’s not forget what’s going on in Gaza. You listen to the news. You read the news. Gaza remains at the epicentre of the regional tensions. It’s the focus which is sending shockwaves around the region and around the world. Gaza remains at the epicentre of the regional tension, and it will be like this as long as the war continues, and more fundamentally that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not resolved. So we have to be able to build peace and stability in the region, taking into account all the conflicts that are developing there, taking into account our absolute commitment to the defence and existence of Israel, but also taking into account the high human cost of the conflicts which are raging there. The European voice has to be the voice of reason –trying to decrease the many humanitarian sufferings and look for a stable peace that, from our point of view, can only be obtained through a political process that leads to a two-state solution. But this is another story.