European business activities in occupied Palestinian territories

Subject: European business activities in occupied Palestinian territories

The EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy 2020-2024 calls for the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles and promotion of the relevant due diligence standards in the fields of business and human rights. Bearing in mind that the EU is firm in its stance that all settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law, can the VP / HR state:

1. How this can be reconciled with the fact that European business are operating and making profits in the occupied territories?

2. Whether the Commission will exclude businesses operating in the occupied territories from tender procedures and grants from the EU institutions, as several human rights organisations have suggested?

3. Whether the Commission is considering a system of penalties which would, for example, exclude such companies from public tender procedures and grants across the EU?

Answer given by High Representative/Vice-President Borrell i Fontelles on behalf of the European Commission (21 June 2022)

It is the EU’s firm position that settlements have no legal validity and constitute a violation under international law as indicated in the United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016) and numerous Foreign Affairs Council conclusions (1).

The EU will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties.

The EU has welcomed the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, endorsed by consensus in the UN Human Rights Council, which establish a corporate responsibility to respect human rights, and require businesses, inter alia, to establish ‘human rights due diligence process to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how they address their impacts on human rights’ (2).

The EU’s view is that these Principles need to be applied globally. The EU calls on all companies, including European companies, to implement them in all circumstances, including in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.

EU Member States have the primary role of informing companies and consumers about business and human rights and the risk of operating in the settlements.

⋅1∙ See Council Conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process, 18 January 2016: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/01/18/fac-conclusions-

mepp, Council Conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process, 20 July 2015: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015/07/20/fac-mepp- conclusions, Council Conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process, 14 May 2012: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/foraff/130195.pdf ⋅2∙ UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: https://www.ohchr.org/documents/publications/guidingprinciplesbusinesshr_en.pdf