Terry Su

Opinion | Is Europe seeking to accelerate its move away from US influence?

The diplomatic fallout from Ireland, Norway and Spain recognising a Palestinian state is yet more evidence of a split emerging between Washington and Brussels

It is still unclear how the Biden administration might respond to France pushing for greater European strategic autonomy, but it is unlikely to look kindly on it

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Why you can trust SCMP

Terry Su

Published: 8:30pm, 3 Jun 2024

I have long maintained that Europe is moving to distance itself from the United States on the world stage, in spite of all the signs of transatlantic solidarity. However, I had not expected it to evolve as quickly as we have seen in the past few weeks.

First came the formal diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state by Ireland, Norway and Spain last month. These announcements are significant, given the historical burden of Europe’s collective sense of guilt over what happened to the Jewish people in Europe under the regime of Nazi Germany.

One could argue that the symbolically important move of recognising a Palestinian state arises from Ireland, Norway and Spain’s collective conscience no longer allowing them to ignore the horrendously disproportionate number of Palestinian civilian casualties – mostly women and children – in Gaza, inflicted by the Israeli armed forces. This was despite Tel Aviv’s insistence that the collateral damage is no worse than that caused by the Allied bombing of Dresden or the US’ use of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

Josep Borrell, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said at the Munich Security Conference in February that accusations of double standards against the West “is something that we need to address, and not only with nice words”. By choosing to recognise a Palestinian state, Ireland, Norway and Spain have gone beyond “nice words” and taken action to remedy the situation despite restrained opposition from Washington, which maintains that recognition should only come through negotiations rather than unilateral action.

The reaction from Israel was much less restrained. Foreign Minister Israel Katz vented his fury on X – formerly known as Twitter – by posting videos addressed to the leaders of Ireland, Norway and Spain saying “Hamas thanks you for your service”. Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares decried the video as “scandalous and execrable”.

This incident has only heightened the ramifications for the US-EU relationship as a result of the decisions to recognise a Palestinian state. The most notable is the increased schism between Washington and its European allies at a time when the United States is most in need of European solidarity. At the same time, Israel remains indispensable to the US in terms of its geopolitical strategy and perhaps more importantly its domestic politics.