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Calls for tougher measures against goods originating from Israeli settlements are gaining momentum across Europe.
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France and Sweden have urged the European Commission to adopt EU-wide restrictions, while countries including Belgium, Spain, Slovenia and Ireland have examined national measures targeting settlement imports.
The debate comes amid the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
In 2025, Israeli Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich boasted that 69 new settlements had been approved in recent years, describing it as a record level of expansion.
Data published by the Israeli settlement monitoring group Peace Now indicates that 103 new settlements have been approved in the West Bank since the current Israeli government took office in late 2022.
While the issue is expected to feature prominently at upcoming talks among EU foreign ministers in July, questions are mounting over whether it’s legally possible for individual member states to take measures against settlement goods under EU law.
How does the EU currently treat Israeli settlements?
The European Union distinguishes between Israel proper and Israeli settlements in territories occupied since 1967.
Under the EU-Israel Association Agreement, goods originating from these settlements are not eligible for preferential tariff treatment. They may still be imported into the EU, but without the duty-free advantage granted to products originating from within Israel’s internationally recognised borders.
The European Commission has also issued guidance requiring products originating from Israeli settlements to be clearly labelled as such.
Since 2004, Israeli exporters have been required to provide postal codes identifying the place of production, enabling the EU to distinguish between goods made in Israel and those produced in settlements.
In 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that food products from Israeli settlements must state their origin on labels to avoid misleading consumers.
There is currently no EU-wide ban on imports from Israeli settlements.
Investigations raise questions over enforcement
Several recent investigations have raised questions about whether these rules are being properly implemented.
According to a new investigation by the international NGO Global Echo Litigation Center, products originating from Israeli settlements continue to enter European markets free of tariffs despite existing restrictions.
The organisation analysed more than 30,000 administrative trade records covering exports from Israel to the EU member states between 2017 and 2026.
Based on that analysis, the NGO, which was founded by Israeli and Palestinian lawyers, estimates that around one-fifth of Israeli shipments destined for the EU originated from settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man is the founder and executive director of the Global Litigation Center and an expert in international humanitarian law. She told Euronews’ fact-checking team, The Cube, that the investigation, based on testimonies from industry representatives, identified three main methods allegedly used to obtain preferential tariff treatment for settlement products.
The first, she said, is what investigators describe as “hiding in plain sight”, where paperwork lists Israeli origin and eligibility for preferential treatment, while the actual place of production is redacted. In some cases, the true origin is replaced with an Israeli address that does not correspond to where the goods were produced.
A second method involves mislabelling, with products declared as Israeli-made despite being produced in settlements.
The third consists of mixing settlement goods with products made inside Israel and packaging them together under a single “Product of Israel” label, making their origin difficult to distinguish.
A separate investigation by +972 Magazine, an independent online media outlet founded by Palestinian and Israeli journalists, reaches similar conclusions.
In January 2026, it reported that some Israeli settlement wineries exported bottles labelled simply as “Made in Israel”, without reference to their origin in the West Bank.
Trade experts say such cases illustrate the challenges authorities face when verifying the origin of imported goods. Agnès Bertrand-Sanz, humanitarian expert and spokesperson for Oxfam Belgium, highlighted the difficulties faced by European customs officials.
“The main responsibility to check the origin of a product lies with the customs authorities, and it really depends on their capacity,” she said. “There are so many products arriving in our ports, in the port of Antwerp, in the port of Rotterdam. Of course, it’s done on a case-by-case basis, and they don’t have time to check everything.”
Martin Konečný, director of the Brussels-based think tank the European Middle East Project, said enforcement is further complicated because Israel considers settlements part of its own territory.
Growing calls for stronger measures
Against this backdrop, several European governments argue that the current framework is insufficient.
In a letter co-signed by France and Sweden and sent to the European Commission in April 2026, and seen by The Cube, the two countries call for additional measures targeting products originating from Israeli settlements. Their proposals include tariffs on settlement goods and restrictions on settlement imports through export licensing schemes.
In an interview with Euronews, French deputy trade minister Nicolas Forissier stressed that the letter advocated a pan-European approach.
“With our Swedish friends, we wrote to the Commission and insisted on the necessity to have a common European position on this question, rapidly,” he said.
He added that the EU should not permit imports originating from territories deemed illegally occupied under international law.
“We cannot accept any import of products that are, in fact, produced in illegally occupied territories regarding international law,” Forissier said.
Sweden and France argue that settlements are illegal under international law and therefore should not benefit from trade arrangements negotiated with Israel.
Konečný voiced a similar opinion, noting that “the settlements are not a part of Israel.”
“They are outside Israel’s territory and therefore are not covered by the Association Agreement,” he said. “They are also not covered by Israel’s membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO) because they are not part of the territory of a WTO member under international law.”
Member states push ahead with their own measures
With an EU-wide approach still up in the air, several European governments have taken matters into their own hands.
In late December 2025, Spain implemented a package of trade restrictions against Israel, including a ban on imports of goods originating from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem.
Slovenia has also moved towards prohibiting imports of goods originating from settlements, alongside a separate ban on the export, import and transit of arms and military equipment to and from Israel.
Belgium has announced plans to restrict imports from territories it considers illegally occupied, although no legislation has yet been adopted. Some of the measures put forward so far focus on reducing institutional and economic cooperation rather than imposing a direct trade ban.
Ireland is expected to introduce legislation targeting goods originating from Israeli settlements in the West Bank by mid-July 2026.
The Netherlands has meanwhile examined measures aimed at limiting trade in products from the settlements and has indicated it could consider broader restrictions in the future.
Despite these moves by individual member states, any attempt to restrict imports from Israeli settlements could face obstacles. Trade policy is an EU competence, while trade relations with Israel are governed by the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which remains in force.
A European Commission spokesperson told The Cube that trade policy falls under “the EU’s exclusive competence” and that “any national measure must be assessed for its compatibility with EU law.”
Regarding Spain, the Commission said that Madrid had informed Brussels of its plans but had not yet formally presented the legal text detailing the measures.
A legal debate over the EU-Israel Agreement
Whether member states — or even the EU itself — can legally ban settlement imports remains disputed among legal experts and NGOs.
Konečný argues that the EU-Israel Association Agreement does not include settlement products because settlements fall outside Israel’s internationally recognised territory.
Loran Bartels, professor of international law at the University of Cambridge, took a more cautious view.
He said the agreement states that quantitative restrictions on imports and measures having an equivalent effect are prohibited between the EU and Israel.
In his view, this applies not only to products eligible for preferential treatment, but to all goods physically coming from Israel into the EU.
The practical distinction between Israeli and settlement goods remains contentious. As Omer-Man notes, products from both Israel and the settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights are exported through Israeli ports and handled by Israeli authorities, thus physically departing from Israel proper.
Bartels argues that the EU already differentiates settlement products by excluding them from preferential tariffs and requiring specific origin labels.
An import ban, he said, would represent “a qualitatively different measure”, as it would go beyond restricting trade preferences and instead prohibit such goods from entering the EU market altogether.
Schaeffer Omer-Man, however, reaches a different conclusion. She argues that the EU’s current approach places it in a “compromised situation” that is difficult to reconcile with international law. She also notes that Israel has long opposed any distinction between Israeli and settlement goods, which it sees as “an affront” and contrary to its interests.
The question of whether the EU could take stronger measures also raises the issue of economic leverage.
Michael Lynk, former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories and associate professor of law at Western University in Canada, argues that the EU has more leverage than is often assumed.
“The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner,” he said, noting that bilateral trade exceeds €43 billion a year and accounts for around a third of Israel’s global trade.
By contrast, trade with Israel represents less than 1% of the EU’s external trade. As Lynk puts it: “This trading relationship is far more important to Israel than it is to the EU.”
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