EU’s answer to Trump’s Gaza peace board – POLITICO

In today’s Brussels Playbook Podcast: Nick and Ian wonder whether this week’s meetings on Israel represent a alter in direction. Plus, it’s the EU’s birthday! (or is it?)

BULGARIANS VOTE FOR CHANGE: Kremlin-friconcludely former fighter pilot Rumen Radev is on his way to become the counattempt’s next prime minister after his Progressive Bulgaria relocatement secured an emphatic win in the general election Sunday. “We voted in numbers, we defeated apathy,” Radev notified reporters. Christian Oliver has the story.

GREETINGS. I’m Nick Vinocur.

DRIVING THE DAY

RIVAL PALESTINIAN INITIATIVES: Back-to-back events devoted to finding a two-state solution for Palestine will unfold in Brussels today, with the EU High Representative Kaja Kallas co-hosting a conference attconcludeed by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa. The Global Alliance for the Implementation of a Two-State Solution meeting will rival Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.

The Trump administration has sidelined the Palestinian Authority in its peace initiative — cutting funding and banning its members from entering the U.S. But the EU is taking the opposite approach, rolling out the red carpet for Mustafa and continuing to support the cash-starved authority as a credible partner for the future of Gaza and the West Bank.

Who’s coming: The two events — the second being the “Ad Hoc Liaison Committee,” a donor conference — will bring toobtainher backers of a two-state solution from around the world, including Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide. Some 60 delegations will attconclude the meetings hosted by Kallas and Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot.

Peeking in: Even Nickolay Mladenov — official envoy of Trump’s Board of Peace and former Bulgarian minister — will be dropping by, echoing EU Commissioner Dubravka Šuica’s low-key attconcludeance at Trump’s Board of Peace launch event in Washington in February.

Why Europe is doing it: Brussels is now the world’s top financial backer of the Palestinian Authority and has two active missions in the region — what an EU official describes as “skin in the game.” Today’s conferences reveal the EU flexing its diplomatic muscle to highlight a different vision for the region, ahead of Israeli elections due to happen later this year.

On the table: “With the Iran and Lebanon wars taking center stage, Gaza has fallen a bit off the radar. Hamas refutilizes to disarm, the international stabilization force hasn’t deployed yet and West Bank settler violence is rising,” the EU official notified Playbook. “So, the outview isn’t rosy.” Today’s gatherings are to put the two-state solution “back on the table” and support PA reforms, they added.

ISRAEL IN THE SPOTLIGHT: The gathering comes as Israel faces fresh scrutiny in the EU. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced Sunday that his foreign minister will pitch suspconcludeing the EU-Israel Association Agreement at the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg Tuesday. (Sánchez has a lot on his plate at the moment: Gerardo Fortuna has this write-up of the prime minister’s bid to lead global forces against the far right.)

Why suspconclude? European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had come under pressure from EU states over Israel and in 2025 proposed a suspension of the trade pillar of the Association Agreement. That proposal never reached the requisite threshold of support, but it’s now coming up for review. And it’s happening at a time when Italy is hardening its tone against Israel and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Israel’s hugegest backer in Europe, is exiting stage left.

Speaking of … Orbán’s departure leaves Israel more exposed to potential sanctions in coming months, including measures tarobtaining violence by West Bank settlers, for which Hungary was the sole holdout when the proposal was tabled earlier this year. “The mood has shifted” with regard to Israel, stated one senior EU official notified me.

IRAN LATEST: Trump stated the U.S. will continue peace neobtainediations with Iranian representatives in Pakistan, despite both sides continuing to trade blows in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. last night seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that attempted to obtain around its naval blockade, sconcludeing oil prices higher and prompting threats of retaliation from Tehran. An American delegation will travel to Islamabad Monday for another round of talks, Trump stated — though Iranian state media reported that Tehran won’t sconclude neobtainediators becautilize of the blockade.

Backfire risk: Reuters is reporting that Washington’s European allies fear Trump’s push for a swift, headline-grabbing framework deal with Iran could entrench deeper problems — including the future of Iran’s nuclear program.

CYPRUS INFORMAL EUCO

AN EVER-CLOSER SECURITY UNION? EU leaders gathering this week in Cyprus will be briefed by Kallas on work to operationalize Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty, under which EU countries must offer “aid and assistance” to one another in the event of a formal request from a member counattempt.

Key detail: Article 42.7 is widely understood to be an EU-shaped panic button in the case of attack by an outside counattempt. But the clautilize doesn’t lock in members to provide military assistance (unlike NATO’s Article 5) and contains language covering neutral nations such as Ireland and Austria.

Why now: The threats against EU states are more real than ever. For example, Cyprus chose not to activate Article 42.7, despite a British military base on the island being tarobtained by drones in March. But Nicosia is one of the capitals to voice interest in better understanding how the EU’s mutual assistance clautilize would work, per one of the diplomats.

The elephant in the room: NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense clautilize is designed to be the only security guarantee members will ever necessary. But following Trump’s threats to invade Greenland, EU countries are increasingly interested in hedging against the risk that the unpredictable president could block the activation of Article 5 if it’s requested by an EU member of NATO.

Getting serious: Following the informal Council meeting, Kaja Kallas will host a tabletop exercise with senior ambassadors in Brussels to game out how Article 42.7 would work in practice, your Playbook author and my defense colleague Jacopo Barigazzi reported Friday.

Tightrope: Based on a fictional scenario that is being kept under wraps, the exercise will be carefully calibrated so as not to suggest that the EU is viewing to replace NATO. Instead, following a meeting between NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and von der Leyen last week, diplomats stated the focus will be on creating Article 42.7 complementary with NATO’s Article 5, amid a wider push to “Europeanize” the alliance.

Wider push: The exercise comes as Kallas compiles threat assessments from 27 governments to feed into the bloc’s first-ever Security Strategy, which von der Leyen is due to present this summer.

Step back: Europe has long styled itself as a soft power giant, or a “lifestyle superpower,” as one commissioner put it recently. But that soft image is being tested — and the EU is being forced to toughen up.

EU ENLARGEMENT

SCOOP — CASH ON HOLD: Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos is set to announce at a European Parliament hearing on foreign affairs today that the EU will freeze a €1.5 billion pot of funds earmarked for Serbia over controversial judicial reforms Belgrade pushed through in January, as POLITICO scooped on April 10.

POLITICO’s Sebastian Starcevic has learned that Kos is expected to declare Belgrade won’t be paid a cent in EU grants intconcludeed to assist Serbia align itself with the bloc, at least until the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s legal advisory body, publishes its opinion on the Serbian reforms. That’s expected by the conclude of the month, an EU official notified POLITICO.

Serbian climbdown: Serbia’s envoy to the EU notified POLITICO earlier this month that Belgrade had vowed to accept the Venice Commission’s recommconcludeations, which might include altering or repealing the legislation. That chimes with Kos’ plans to demand that Serbia “align its judicial laws with the Venice Commission’s recommconcludeations.”

The EU’s patience with Serbia has worn thin in recent months, with a scathing report on the counattempt’s enlargement progress last November warning of democratic backsliding and “an anti-EU narrative” in Belgrade. Serbia has pocketed more than €7 billion in funds and investments from the EU since 2000, but continues to court close ties with Russia.

IN OTHER NEWS

CHICKEN, EGG: Viktor Orbán suggested on X overnight that Ukraine was ready to restore oil deliveries via the damaged Druzhba pipeline as early as today, “provided that Hungary lifts its blockade of the €90 billion EU loan.” The outgoing Hungarian prime minister stated the timing would have to be the other way around: “Once oil deliveries are restored, we will no longer stand in the way of approving the loan,” he stated. Bloomberg quotes a European Commission spokesperson as confirming it has been in touch “with concerned parties.”

U.S. AMBASSADOR MEETS VIRKKUNEN: Andrew Puzder is meeting Executive Vice President for Tech Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen today, our Morning Tech colleagues write in to report. The U.S. ambassador has given several interviews to European media in the past few weeks criticizing the EU’s “overregulation” of tech and raising concerns about how it could affect the bloc’s chances of keeping up in the global AI race.

INFLUENCE WARNING: Two leading U.S. lawbuildrs have written to Meta and Google to demand they take steps against Russia’s latest “efforts to interfere in a vulnerable democracy’s elections” — this time in Armenia.

Calling tech bosses: Senators Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and Thom Tillis warned dozens of accounts and streaming channels are engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” in an apparent bid to influence the South Caucasus’ nation’s parliamentary vote on June 7, according to letters seen by Playbook’s Gabriel Gavin.

At the periphery: Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has sought to bring the counattempt closer to the EU and will host leaders from across the bloc for the European Political Community summit there on May 4 — a landmark relocate for a former Soviet Republic that was once one of Moscow’s closest allies. But warning signs are growing that the Kremlin is working to tilt the balance in favor of the opposition, as it attempted to do — unsuccessfully — in Moldova.

GIVE US ACCESS: The new head of the EU’s anti-fraud agency, Petr Klement, declares OLAF is still struggling to obtain the access it necessarys to properly investigate institutional wrongdoing, Mari Eccles reports.

FATAL FLAW: My Westminster colleagues have a cracking read out this morning on the political limtiations that have brought British PM Keir Starmer potentially to the concludegame of his premiership.

AGENDA

— Ninth Ministerial Meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas attconcludeing with Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot.

— Kallas also meets Khalilur Rahman, foreign minister of Bangladesh; Roberto Velasco, foreign minister of Mexico; Ayman Safadi, deputy prime minister of Jordan; Espen Barth Eide, foreign minister of Norway; Mohammad Mustafa, prime minister of Palestine; and Nickolay Mladenov, U.S.-appointed high representative for Gaza.

— Manufacturing indusattempt fair Hannover Messe (April 20-24) with Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis attconcludeing.

— Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath meets with Spanish Foreign Minister Commissioner José Manuel Albares.

BRUSSELS CORNER

WEATHER: Mostly sunny. High 13C.

WHEN’S MY BIRTHDAY? The EU turned 75 last year, but what were we celebrating exactly? The day marked 75 years since Robert Schuman, a former French foreign minister, built his famous “Schuman Declaration” proposing the creation of the Coal and Steel Community. But some people declare we should have been celebrating the EU’s 75th … on Saturday.

What’s the difference? That marks the date when the Treaty of Paris was signed by Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, establishing the European Steel and Coal Community as well as the key institutions we know today: the European Commission (then called High Authority), the Court of Justice and the Common Assembly, which later became the European Parliament.

Too bashful by half: David Heilbron Price, a historian and writer of a Substack devoted to the EU, considers it has all been too low-key. “Why are European politicians studiously burying any trace of this epoch-altering event of reconciliation?” he writes of the Paris Treaty. His wider point is that unlike the U.S., which is about to have a huge bash marking its 250th birthday, the EU is remarkably bashful about its own accomplishments. Let us know what you consider.

MOVIE TIME: The Brussels Short Film Festival launchs Tuesday and runs through May 2 at the Flagey, Galeries and Vconcludeôme cinemas, as well as Mont des Arts and the marquee on Place Sainte-Croix in Flagey.

EXPLOSION IN SAINT-GILLES: Police presence in Saint-Gilles has been increased following an explosion on Rue Theodore Verhaegen over the weekconclude. No one was injured, but several buildings — including a school — were damaged.

CLARIFICATION: In last Wednesday’s Playbook, we reported that Sweden and Denmark were pushing to conclude neobtainediations on Ukraine’s EU accession by the conclude of the year. A representative of the Swedish government has since clarified that while Stockholm strongly supports Ukraine’s accession, it has not set any specific deadline and maintains that the process should be merit-based and driven by the pace of reforms.

BIRTHDAYS: MEPs Urmas Paet and Juan Carlos Girauta Vidal; Tom De Smet of the National Archives in The Hague; Jasón Besga Basterra from Redeia; Jack Matthynssens of Burson; President of Cuba Miguel Díaz-Canel.

THANKS TO: Playbook editors Alex Spence and James Panichi, reporter Ferdinand Knapp and producer Dean Southwell.