EXCLUSIVE: Kallas’ Israel ‘apartheid’ remarks deepen EU foreign policy crisis

Kaja Kallas compared Israel to South Africa’s racist apartheid era during high-level talks in Mexico, breaking ranks with EU official foreign policy and deepening the controversy around her leadership.

The remark comes as the European External Action Service (EEAS), which she heads, is facing an unparalleled level of criticism about whether it is fit for purpose during the second term of Donald Trump, and amid greater geopolitical uncertainty.

Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister, travelled to Mexico City from 20 to 22 May as part of a senior EU delegation attending a major summit in the country.

During closed-door and confidential meetings with Mexican government representatives, Kallas compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to the racist apartheid policies of South Africa, which ended in the early 1990s.

Officials and diplomats, including those present at the meeting, told Euractiv that she described how moved she was by a visit last year to South Africa and its apartheid museum in the capital, Johannesburg.

South Africa had a strict state policy of forced racial segregation between whites and blacks, known as apartheid, that lasted from 1948 to the early 1990s before being brought down by figures such as Nelson Mandela.

Tough talking

The accusation that Israel’s policies and military action, following the attacks by Hamas in October 2023, are rooted in an apartheid-type policy of racism towards Palestinians, or Arabs, is highly controversial.

While there is some sympathy from the Irish and Spanish governments, the EU has steered well clear of such claims, which have been categorically rejected by countries including Germany and France.

The claim also forms the basis of South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where the country alleges that Israel has violated its obligations under the Genocide Convention in Gaza.

In line with the EU’s policy, Kallas has acknowledged Israel’s right to self-defence but has said the response should be proportionate, while criticising Israeli settlements on the West Bank as undermining the possibility of a two-state solution.

“The EU is critical of Israel and supports a two-state solution. The comparison with apartheid is unacceptable and not EU policy. It is a big problem if she is making these kinds of statements while officially representing the EU on the world stage,” said one EU diplomat.

Kallas’ office was asked for a response on Monday, but declined to comment, either to confirm or deny the report.

It is not the first diplomatic blunder made by Kallas in recent weeks.

At an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers on 28 May in Limassol, Cyprus, Kallas made an error that could have strained EU-US relations.

Responding to a warning by Moscow for foreign diplomats to leave Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, threatening that large-scale attacks were imminent, she stated that Putin was attempting to spread fear. Kallas went on and said: “All the European embassies stayed; the Americans left”.

Her statement was wrong as American diplomats had not left Kyiv. “These mistakes are unacceptable for an EU foreign policy chief,” another EU diplomat said.

Crisis of policy

Kallas’ comments have reinforced and deepened an internal political crisis within the EEAS and EU institutions over the conduct of European foreign policy.

One senior Commission official noted that her “unwise words on multiple occasions” were reinforcing criticism from a growing number of national governments, including France, Germany, Sweden, Finland and Ireland.

“If a national foreign minister says unwise and undiplomatic things, then you can be summoned by your prime minister or the like. In the EU system it doesn’t work this. And yet [Kallas] speaks on behalf of the 27 member states,” the official added.

The post held by Kallas is simultaneously both the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, or HRVP.

The role embodies an awkward place in the EU’s institutional architecture occupied by the EEAS, as formally independent, yet politically tethered to both the Commission and the member states.

Brussels sources have noted that three of the five top jobs in EEAS, below Kallas, are currently unfilled at the diplomatic service.

While the post of HRVP and the EEAS is written into EU treaty law, a debate is beginning within some national foreign ministries, including in France, over its future.

“It is clear that we can not continue like this,” said one diplomat.

On Thursday, Kallas responded to the criticism. “It is important to recall that the roles and responsibilities of the EU institutions are clearly defined in the treaties. That framework remains unchanged,” she wrote in an email to staff.

(bw, mm, jp)