Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said there is a “very clear majority” but not unanimity in the EU for a ceasefire in Gaza, a day after saying the bloc had “lost credibility” on the issue.
He said the 27 nations had decided against wording on the Israel-Palestine conflict that “nobody would have been happy with”.
He was speaking at the end of a two-day EU summit that saw an agreement to begin accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova, and a proposal to send a €50 billion aid package to Ukraine vetoed by Hungary.
Mr Varadkar said on the way into the talks that he did not agree with the rationale that a ceasefire would prevent Israel from pursuing Hamas.
He said the EU also needed to be stronger on pushing for a two-state solution, adding that the political and economic weight of the bloc needed to go into the issue.
It comes after a UN General Assembly vote in which the vast majority of countries voted for an immediate ceasefire in the region. Austria, Germany and the UK abstained on the vote, while the US voted against it.
Speaking at the end of the summit, Mr Varadkar said: “If we had tried to have written conclusions, we would have been here for many, many hours, and probably have only come up with compromise wording that nobody would have been happy with.”
He added: “It wasn’t an angry discussion. It was a genuine strategic debate. but it was my view, and the view of others, that if we couldn’t get unanimity on calling for a ceasefire, there was no point in coming up with some sort of interim language, rolling truces or on and off pauses.
“So the position of the overwhelming majority of the EU countries now is that there should be a ceasefire and everyone unanimous around a two-state solution and we’re working towards a package of restrictions on violent settlers (and) sanctions on Hamas and Hamas finance.
“It’s clear to me that the American position is shifting too and that’s significant, but I know a lot of people in the room, certainly those of us who are in the majority who want there to be a ceasefire, didn’t feel we should have to wait for the Americans to call for a ceasefire before Europe does.”
Speaking on his way into the EU Council meeting on Friday, Mr Varadkar said that some EU countries believe a ceasefire would prevent Israel from pursuing Hamas terrorists.
“I don’t agree with that interpretation, you can pursue terrorists without engaging in the kind of war and destruction that Israel is engaging in at the moment in Gaza – we know that European countries have also had to deal with terrorism, they didn’t do or even contemplate doing what Israel has done in Gaza.”
He added: “What we have to do really is become more active and more interested in this issue as a European Union. For a long time now, we’ve talked the talk when it comes to building a two-state solution in the Middle East, but we haven’t really put our political or economic power behind that, and I think we should.
“The European Union should insist on a two-state solution, should work with the Palestinian Authority or a new Palestinian leadership perhaps to make that happen, but also really pressurise Israel and say that their failure to allow the Palestinians to have their own state is going to affect the relationship between Israel and the EU into the future.
“It’s not going to be back to the way it was before this war.”
On the first day of the summit, Mr Varadkar said that he would tell EU leaders that the bloc had “lost credibility” on its position on Israel-Palestine.
He said this credibility had been lost with the Global South “because what is perceived to be double standards, and there’s some truth in that quite frankly” as well as with young people.
