Israel suspends contact with EU bodies over labelling of West Bank produce

Israel has said it is suspending contacts with European Union bodies involved in peace efforts with the Palestinians after the bloc started requiring exports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be labelled.

On Sunday, the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, ordered the foreign ministry to carry out “a reassessment of the involvement of EU bodies in everything that is connected to the diplomatic process with the Palestinians”, a ministry statement said.

“Until completion of the reassessment, the prime minister has ordered a suspension of diplomatic contacts with the EU and its representatives in this matter.”

The EU published new guidelines on 11 November for labelling products made in Israeli settlements, a move Brussels said was technical but which Israel branded “discriminatory” and damaging to peace efforts with the Palestinians.

Drawn up over three years by the European commission, the guidelines mean Israeli producers must explicitly label farm goods and other products that come from settlements built on land occupied by Israel if they are sold in the EU.

The EU’s position is that the lands Israel has occupied since the 1967 Middle East war – including the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights – are not part of the internationally recognised borders of Israel. As such, goods from there cannot be labelled “Made in Israel” and should be labelled as coming from settlements, which the EU considers illegal under international law.

After the EU announcement, Netanyahu called it “hypocritical and a double standard“, saying the EU was not taking similar steps in hundreds of territorial conflicts elsewhere in the world.

“The European Union should be ashamed of itself,” he said while on an official visit in Washington earlier this month. “We do not accept the fact that Europe is labelling the side being attacked by terrorist acts.“

The development of settlements has been one of the obstacles to negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. US-backed peace talks stalled in April 2014.

“It is an indication of origin, not a warning label,” the EU ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, told Reuters after the bloc’s decision was announced.