BRUSSELS — The European Commission’s vice president Henna Virkkunen sounded the alarm about Europe’s dependence on foreign technology on Tuesday, saying “it’s very clear that Europe is having our independence moment.” “During the last year, everybody has really realized how important it is that we are not dependent on one country or one company when it comes to some very critical technologies,” she said at an event organized by POLITICO. “In these times … dependencies, they can be weaponized against us,” Virkkunen said. The intervention at the event — titled Europe’s race for digital leadership — comes at a particularly sensitive time in transatlantic relations, after U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent threats to take over Greenland forced European politicians to consider retaliation. Virkkunen declined to single out the United States as one of the partners that the EU must de-risk from. She pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as incidents that point to Europe’s “vulnerabilities.” She said the U.S. is a key partner, but also noted that “it’s very important for our competitiveness and for our security, that we have also our own capacity, that we are not dependent.” The Commission’s executive vice president for tech sovereignty swung behind the idea of using public contracts as a way to support the development of European technology companies and products. “We should use public procurement, of course, much more actively also to boost our own growing technologies in the European Union,” she said when asked about her stance on plans to “Buy European.” Those plans, being pushed by the French EU commissioner Stéphane Séjourné, in charge of European industy, to ensure that billions in procurement contracts flow to EU businesses, are due to be outlined in an upcoming Industrial Accelerator Act that has been delayed multiple times. “Public services, governments, municipalities, regions, also the European Commission, we are very big customers for ICT services,” Virkkunen said. “And we can also boost very much European innovations [and startups] when we are buying services.” Virkkunen is overseeing a package of legislation aimed at promoting tech sovereignty that is expected to come out this spring, including action on cloud and artificial intelligence, and microchips — industries in which Europe is behind global competitors. When asked where she saw the biggest need for Europe to break away from foreign reliance, the commissioner said that while it was difficult to pick only one area, “chips are very much a pre-condition for any other technologies.” “We are not able to design and manufacture very advanced chips. It’s very problematic for our technology customer. So I see that semiconductor chips, they are very much key for any other technologies,” she said.

LONDON — Chancellor Rachel Reeves warned Britain “would never rule anything out” when it comes to retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. administration, following Donald Trump’s latest Greenland tariff threats. Speaking to the BBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday morning, Reeves said the U.K. “would not be buffeted around,” while stressing she had been reassured by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that the trade deal struck between Britain and Washington “will stand.” EU leaders have toughened their position ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech in Davos on Wednesday afternoon. Germany has joined France in urging the European Commission to prepare its most powerful trade weapon — the Anti-Coercion Instrument — if Trump refuses to back down on his threats, according to five diplomats with knowledge of the situation. The tool would allow the bloc to impose tariffs, restrictions on investment and public procurement, and limits on intellectual property protections.  On Wednesday morning, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the U.S. president’s “proposed additional tariffs are simply wrong,” warning that an escalation would only “embolden the adversaries we are both so committed to keeping out of our strategic landscape.” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday called for calm over the U.S.’s fraught trade relationship with the EU and U.K., warning that the “worst thing countries can do is escalate against the United States.” “What I’m urging everyone here to do is sit back, take a deep breath, and let things play out,” he said.

President Donald Trump backed down from the most extreme “Liberation Day” tariffs after bond traders revolted at the prospect of economic upheaval. Now, his push to coerce Denmark into ceding Greenland has threatened to trigger a similar market rout. Bond yields spiked and stocks sank on Tuesday as investors reckoned with how Trump’s threat to impose new tariffs on Europe could hammer alliances that are critical to the global economy. That reignited fears that the “Sell America” trade that dominated market narratives last spring could reemerge, undercutting Wall Street’s hopes for U.S. assets in 2026. As global leaders and top financial CEOs gathered in Davos for the World Economic Forum, where Trump is scheduled to speak on Wednesday, the blowback from bond traders threatened to undermine the president’s bullish case for both the U.S. economy and its market outlook. “The narrative just won’t go away,” said Paul Christopher, head of global investment strategy at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. Foreign investors flooded back into U.S. assets as tensions eased during the latter half of 2025, but now “they’re hedging because they’re not sure what Trump is going to do with tariffs next.” Trump has historically been highly sensitive to how the bond market responds to his policies, and he regularly cites the stock market’s surge as evidence of how his agenda is working. The latest turmoil has echoes of the volatility that hit global bond markets shortly after he announced eye-popping tariffs last April on dozens of trading partners at a White House press conference. The president later announced a temporary pause on the new import duties after the bond market started “getting a little bit yippy,” in his words. His threat on Saturday to impose more tariffs on Europe sparked a similar response. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by more than 870 points on Tuesday. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 both closed down by more than 2 percent — erasing the gains notched through the first three weeks of the year. Yields on the 10-year and 30-year Treasury securities — which are benchmark rates for consumer and corporate lending products — jumped to their highest levels since last September, and the dollar sank. The president warned that he would impose additional 10 percent tariffs on eight European countries that have sought to block his ambitions to acquire Greenland, the sparsely populated Danish territory that’s been a fixation of the president since his first term. French President Emmanuel Macron has said he’s planning to activate the EU’s so-called trade bazooka — the Anti-Coercion Instrument — to respond to Trump’s saber rattling. That would allow the EU to impose restrictions on investment and access to public procurement schemes, as well as limits on intellectual property protection. The White House pushed back on the notion that the markets were rejecting Trump’s policies. “The S&P 500 is up over 10 percent and 10-year Treasury bond yields are down nearly 30 basis points over the past year because the markets have confidence in the Trump administration’s pro-growth, pro-business policies,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said. “Accelerating GDP growth, cooled inflation, and over a dozen historic trade deals all prove that this Administration continues to deliver for American workers and companies.” Banking leaders — including Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, Citi’s Jane Fraser and State Street’s Ron O’Hanley — signaled optimism at the U.S.’s economic outlook in separate media appearances in Davos as they urged government leaders to find a resolution. “Let the people go to work,” Moynihan told CNBC. “They’re here in this beautiful place, and they’ve got a week to a few days to work on it. So, give them 48 hours and see if they can come up with solutions.” Throughout his first year back in the White House, Trump’s costly tariffs and insistence that Europe do more to finance its own defense have caused economic disruption and forced leaders across the continent to reckon with the possibility that the U.S. is no longer as strong a partner as it once was. And while markets have grown increasingly confident that the president’s frequent escalations result in policies that are far less severe than his initial threats, finding an off-ramp in the fight over Greenland’s future could prove challenging. “The market’s very complacent to the idea that this is just a negotiating tool,” said Brij Khurana, a fixed-income portfolio manager at Wellington Management. “I’m more nervous about it because I don’t, I don’t see what the middle ground is here.” In an appearance on Fox Business from Davos on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it’s “very difficult to disaggregate” the market’s reaction to Trump’s Greenland push from a massive sell-off in Japanese bonds that was triggered by mounting concerns about the country’s fiscal trajectory. As European leaders consider taking steps to retaliate against Trump, Bessent urged caution. “Sit back, take a deep breath, do not retaliate,” he said. “The president will be here tomorrow, and he will get his message across.” Aiden Reiter contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — The trade war is back. Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on European countries over Greenland has blown up last year’s transatlantic trade truce and forced the EU into a familiar dilemma: hit back hard, or try to buy time.  On paper, Brussels has options. It could target politically sensitive U.S. exports like Republican-state soybeans. Or it could unleash its trade “bazooka,” the Anti-Coercion Instrument. Here are the actions that EU leaders can consider when they gather for an emergency summit on Thursday: HITTING BACK AGAINST U.S. PRODUCTS Retaliatory tariffs on €93 billion worth of U.S. goods are still sitting in the EU’s pantry. These date back to Trump’s first round of tariffs last year and were frozen for six months in August. This package will automatically kick into force on Feb. 7 unless the Commission proposes to extend the freeze and the 27 EU countries agree with that. Such a suspension can happen very quickly, however, as the Commission typically sounds out support from capitals several times a week. Part of the package targets distinctively American products like Levi’s jeans, Harley Davidson motorcycles and Kentucky bourbon. Other goods would be targeted because they originate in states that lean towards the Republican side of the spectrum. A tariff on soy beans, for instance, would target the red state of Louisiana from which House Speaker Mike Johnson hails. DEPLOYING THE TRADE “BAZOOKA” The biggest weapon in the EU’s arsenal is its Anti-Coercion Instrument. This all-purpose tool is meant to deter other countries from using trade tactics to extort concessions in other areas. With it, Brussels can impose or increase customs duties, restrict exports or imports through quotas or licenses, and impose restrictions on trade in services. It also can curb access to public procurement, foreign direct investment, intellectual property rights and access to the bloc’s financial markets.  But in a case like this, it would take a few months to first clear diplomatic hurdles between the Commission and the Trump administration. Because it has never been triggered before, the EU is in uncharted waters. That is especially true for the dynamics between the Commission and national capitals. Brussels needs to propose launching the mechanism, and would only do so if it knows enough capitals will agree. France is keen, but Germany and other countries? Not so much. Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images “It’s one of the cards,” but “it’s really not the first in the line that you use,” Lithuanian Finance Minister Kristupas Vaitiekūnas told POLITICO in an interview. PLAYING THE CHINA CARD Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did something unprecedented last Friday. Turning the page on the acrimonious relationship between Canada and China born out of the arrest of a high-profile Huawei executive, the Canadian leader struck a preliminary trade deal with Beijing to liberalize imports of Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for a steep reduction in tariffs on Canadian agricultural goods. Carney didn’t mention Trump by name, but the message was clear: Canada has other partners, and it won’t sit quietly while Washington tries to strong-arm it.   A blueprint for Brussels? It’s not that simple. While the EU has tried to thread the needle on its trade relations with Beijing — the Asian country remains its second-largest trading partner  — policymakers are keenly aware of the competitive threat posed by China, Inc. Germany’s automotive industry is reeling from high energy prices and fierce competition from China (now the world’s top automotive exporter). In general, overcapacity — the term for China’s dizzying output of products that, unable to be absorbed by its domestic market, are sold abroad — keeps EU business leaders up at night. Compared with Canada, for the EU China is a “whole different can of worms,” said trade expert David Kleimann. “The Chinese are outcompeting us on all of our main exports and domestic production,” he said. “We will need more barriers, more managed trade with China.”  AN ASSET FIRESALE America’s enormous debt pile is one Achilles heel. The U.S. loves to spend, and Europeans, in turn, snap up that debt. George Saravelos, head of foreign exchange research at Deutsche Bank, said that European public and private sector entities hold a combined total of $8 trillion of U.S. stocks and debt — “twice as much as the rest of the world combined.”  “In an environment where the geoeconomic stability of the western alliance is being disrupted existentially, it is not clear why Europeans would be as willing to play this part,” the analyst wrote in a note to clients. If European governments order their banks and pension funds to dump their holdings, that would almost certainly spark a financial crisis, sending America’s borrowing costs soaring. The ensuing financial Armageddon would engulf Europe as well, though. The firesale of financial assets would crush prices, and European lenders would book huge losses — the financial equivalent of nuclear mutually assured destruction.  Increasing decoupling from the U.S. financial system looks likely, but a violent wholesale break is extremely unlikely.  PLAYING FOR TIME Restraint is the EU’s weapon of choice for now. “The priority here is to engage, not escalate, and avoid the imposition of tariffs,” Olof Gill, deputy chief spokesperson for the European Commission, said on Monday. Under their trade deal struck last year, the United States has already lowered tariffs on most EU products to 15 percent, while the EU has yet to make good on its pledge to cut its tariffs on U.S. industrial goods to zero. That’s because Trump’s threats have derailed a vote in the European Parliament on lowering tariffs for U.S. products. While this stalemate lasts, EU companies actually benefit from lower costs while the reverse is not true for their American counterparts. “Trade continues to flow, investment continues to flow,” Gill added. “So we need to be very sensible in how we approach the difference between a threat and operational reality.” With Trump trying to drive a wedge between European leaders by threatening tariffs against some countries, including France and Germany, while sparing others, like Italy, maintaining cohesion will be a huge challenge. Any serious retaliation, such as wielding the bloc’s trade “bazooka,” the Anti-Coercion Instrument, would require very broad support. WHAT COMES NEXT The U.S. Supreme Court might rule on some of Trump’s tariffs as soon as Tuesday. If the administration loses the case, Trump would have to deal with the fallout while he’s attending this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos.  “On a purely economic warfare basis, that would play in our favor,” said Kleimann. “But we haven’t considered Trump’s ambitions to actually put boots on the ground.” At Davos, Trump might meet with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, although no bilateral is yet confirmed. Von der Leyen will speak at Davos on Tuesday; Trump is due to arrive the day after.  Then on Thursday, EU government leaders hold an emergency summit in Brussels to discuss transatlantic relations and the latest tariff threats. The meeting is not expected to create a glitzy attack plan but rather to sound out whether the EU should indeed target the U.S. goods or maybe shoulder its trade bazooka. By Feb. 1, the U.S. tariffs on the European allies would kick in, if Trump follows through on his threats. A week later, the EU’s retaliation package automatically kicks in if no solution is found. If that happens, we really will be in a trade war.

French President Emmanuel Macron will ask the EU to activate the bloc’s so-called trade “bazooka” — the Anti-Coercion Instrument — in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats over Greenland. “He will be in contact all day with his European counterparts and will ask, in the name of France, the activation of the Anti-Coercion Instrument,” Macron’s office said on Sunday. The instrument offers the EU various punitive trade measures that can be taken against trade rivals that try to threaten the bloc. Those measures include restrictions on investment and access to public procurement schemes, as well as limits on intellectual property protections. On Saturday, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on European countries that oppose his plans to take control of Greenland. EU ambassadors are convening an emergency meeting later Sunday to respond to the tariff threat. Macron responded later Saturday by saying: “Tariff threats are unacceptable.” “No intimidation or threat will influence us,” Macron said in a post on X. “Europeans will respond in a united and coordinated manner … We will ensure that European sovereignty is upheld,”

BRUSSELS — A landmark transatlantic trade deal will not be approved by EU lawmakers after U.S. President Donald Trump hit European countries with new tariffs as part of his efforts to wrest control of Greenland from Denmark. Confirmation that the European Parliament will not move forward with ratification of the agreement, signed by Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in July last year, casts the future of the trade war truce into uncertainty. In a statement online, Manfred Weber, the president of the European People’s Party (EPP), said that the escalating U.S.-Europe tensions meant the Parliament would not vote in favor of the pact, which sets U.S. tariffs on imports from the EU at 15 percent in exchange for the bloc not applying levies on American exports. “The EPP is in favor of the EU-U.S. trade deal, but given Donald Trump’s threats regarding Greenland, approval is not possible at this stage,” Weber wrote. “The 0 percent tariffs on U.S. products must be put on hold.” While other members of von der Leyen’s governing coalition — the center-left S&D, centrist Renew and left-wing Greens — had been pushing for a strategic pause on the implementation of the trade deal in recent weeks, her own EPP had remained unconvinced until now. On Wednesday, lawmakers delayed a decision on whether to freeze ratification amid tensions over Trump’s demand that Denmark hand over Greenland to the U.S. A vote had been expected on Jan. 26, laying out the European Parliament’s position on lifting tariffs on U.S. industrial goods — one of the key planks of a deal struck between Brussels and Washington last summer. The deal with Washington “will not be postponed,” EPP lawmaker Željana Zovko said at the time. Karin Karlsboro — the Swedish MEP who serves as coordinator on trade for Renew — told POLITICO on Saturday that the EU-U.S. deal would not find sufficient support from lawmakers. “I see no possibility for the European Parliament to give the green light to move forward with the tariff agreement when we take a decision on Wednesday. Instead, the EU must prepare to respond to President Trump’s tariff attacks, including those targeting Sweden,” she said. “We cannot rule out either retaliatory tariffs or the use of the ‘bazooka’ if the pressure and coercion continue.” The EU’s so-called trade “bazooka,” or Anti-Coercion Instrument, offers a range of punitive measures that can be used against trade rivals that try to threaten the bloc. Among them are restrictions on investments and access to public procurement schemes, as well as limits on intellectual property protections. The S&D’s vice president for trade, Kathleen Van Brempt, joined calls for the use of the instrument late Saturday. “It is nothing short of outrageous that Donald Trump is using tariffs and economic threats to force through an illegitimate territorial claim,” Van Brempt said in a statement. Approving the trade deal, she said, “would not be ‘pragmatic’, but downright foolish,” she said. “If this is not coercion, then what is?” Van Brempt added. Trump on Saturday announced a 10 percent additional tariff on European countries that have contributed troops to a small deployment that arrived in Greenland earlier this week. The levy will increase to 25 percent starting June 1, he declared, and will remain in force “until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.” European leaders have reacted with fury, insisting that the deployment to Greenland is a response to Trump’s claims of growing Russian and Chinese threats to the island in the North Atlantic. European Council President António Costa warned Washington that the new tariffs will be met with a “joint response.” Camille Gijs contributed reporting.

The European Parliament is postponing making a call on whether to ask a far-right group to pay back €4 million until the EU’s prosecutor concludes its investigation into the group’s alleged mismanagement of funds. The Parliament’s Bureau, composed of President Roberta Metsola and the 14 vice presidents, will on Monday evening rubber-stamp the recommendation from the Parliament’s secretary-general to delay closing the 2024 accounts of the now-defunct Identity and Democracy group, according to a note seen by POLITICO. The Parliament’s administration found irregularities in public procurement and donations to the ID group — former home to France’s Marine Le Pen, Austria’s Herbert Kickl and Italy’s Matteo Salvini — to the tune of €4.3 million between 2019 and 2024, after which the European Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation into the matter, as reported by POLITICO. What makes the affair complicated is that the ID group dissolved after last year’s EU election, with a majority of its members and staff absorbed into the new Patriots for Europe group. While the Parliament’s budgetary control committee considers the two groups to be related — and therefore, the Patriots potentially liable to pay back the cash — the Patriots have pushed back, arguing that they are two separate legal entities. “The absurd claim that the Patriots are the legal successors to the ID group is baseless,” Patriots MEP Tamás Deutsch said in September, after the budgetary control committee instructed the secretary-general to look into recovering the allegedly misspent funds. The secretary-general should “assess the potential liabilities of the responsible [lawmakers] and hierarchy for intentional or gross-negligent authorization of irregular expenditure,” the committee said in a letter addressed to Metsola. A spokesperson for EPPO declined to give a timeline for the results of its probe. “The investigation is ongoing and will take as long as necessary to examine all relevant elements, both incriminating and exculpatory,” they said.

BRUSSELS — Europe is finally firing back at Elon Musk. Aerospace companies Airbus, Leonardo and Thales said Thursday they had reached a preliminary agreement to combine their space activities to create the kind of European champion that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has envisaged. Announcing “a leading European player in space,” the companies said they would combine their satellite and space systems manufacturing into a €6.5 billion business that will employ around 25,000 people across Europe.  The three-way deal seeks to create a challenger to Musk’s SpaceX — especially in low-earth orbit satellites of the type that power his Starlink internet service. SpaceX’s projected 2025 revenue is around $15 billion. The deal — initially named Project Bromo after a volcano in Indonesia — has been a long time coming. Talks among the three companies were complicated by the involvement of five governments as shareholders or partners. And winning antitrust approval was always going to be a tall order. France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the U.K. will all have an interest in the new company, which will be headquartered in Toulouse in southern France but will be split out into five different legal entities to preserve sovereign interests. The governance structure mirrors that of European missilemaker MDBA.  Airbus, the European aerospace giant, will own a 35 percent stake, while Leonardo of Italy and Thales of France will own 32.5 percent each. There will be a sole yet-to-be-named CEO and managing directors for each country, an Airbus spokesperson told POLITICO. French Economy Minister Roland Lescure hailed the announcement as “excellent news.” “The creation of a European satellite champion allows us to increase investment in research and innovation in this strategic sector and reinforce our sovereignty in a context of intense global competition,” he said in a post on Bluesky. Sounding rather less enthusiastic, a spokesperson for German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche said Berlin was following the possible consolidation of the European aerospace industry “with great interest” and was in touch with Airbus and its defense subsidiary. LEAGUE OF CHAMPIONS France and Germany have been vocal on the need to create continental champions — with industry chiefs from both countries recently issuing a joint appeal to Brussels to relax its merger rules to enable companies to gain scale and compete in a global setting. In a twist of irony, the deal involves a company — Airbus — that is widely seen as the only European corporate champion ever built. With roots dating back to 1970, Airbus was created in its current incarnation through a Franco-German-Spanish merger in 2000. France and Germany each own 10 percent stakes and Spain 4 percent. Italy has a 30 percent stake in Leonardo, which in turn owns 33 percent of Thales Alenia Space.  The new company will pool, build and develop “a comprehensive portfolio of complementary technologies and end-to-end solutions, from space infrastructure to services.” It is expected to generate annual synergies producing “mid triple digit million euro” operating income five years after closing, which is expected in 2027, according to a press release.  MERGER HURDLE The tie-up requires a green light from the Commission’s competition directorate, which will have to weigh the tension between its current rulebook for reviewing mergers and von der Leyen’s desire to pick European winners. The joint venture would compete with overseas players on satellites for commercial telecommunications. However, it would face scant competition for military and public procurement tenders in the EU, for example with the European Space Agency (ESA). These are typically restricted to home-grown bidders. Rolf Densing, ESA’s director of operations, has voiced concerns that the deal would leave the agency with limited options for sourcing satellite contracts. Germany’s OHB would be left as its last remaining competitor. OHB’s CEO Marco Fuchs has warned that the deal threatens to create a monopoly that would harm customers and European industry. That could herald a rerun of the tensions that the Commission faced when it blocked a Franco-German train industry merger between Siemens and Alstom in 2019 — although today the political environment is more favorable to the companies.  The Commission’s competition directorate is under pressure to broaden its views on mergers to take into account the bloc’s wider push for growth and an increased capacity to compete with U.S. and Chinese players. A review of the bloc’s merger guidelines is due next year, according to the Commission’s latest work program. Alexandre Léchenet in Paris and Tom Schmidtgen in Berlin contributed reporting.

TIRANA — Albania has become the first country in the world to have an AI minister — not a minister for AI, but a virtual minister made of pixels and code and powered by artificial intelligence. Her name is Diella, meaning sunshine in Albanian, and she will be responsible for all public procurement, Prime Minister Edi Rama said Thursday. During the summer, Rama mused that one day the country could have a digital minister and even an AI prime minister, but few thought that day would come around so quickly.  At the Socialist Party assembly in Tirana on Thursday, where Rama announced which ministers would get the chop and which would stay on for another mandate, he also introduced Diella, the only non-human member of the government. “Diella is the first member not physically present, but virtually created by artificial intelligence,” he told party members. Rama stated that decisions on tenders would be taken “out of the ministries” and placed in the hands of Diella, who is “the servant of public procurement.” He said the process will be “step-by-step,” but Albania will be a country where public tenders are “100 percent incorruptible and where every public fund that goes through the tender procedure is 100 percent legible.” “This is not science fiction, but the duty of Diella,” he said. Diella has already been introduced to Albanian citizens as she powers the country’s e-Albania platform, which allows citizens to access almost all government services digitally. She even has an avatar, appearing as a young woman dressed in traditional Albanian clothing. Diella will evaluate tenders and have the right to “hire talents here from all over the world,” while breaking down “the fear of prejudice and rigidity of the administration.” Albania has long battled with corruption, particularly in public administration and in the area of public procurement. The matter has been repeatedly highlighted by the European Union in its annual rule of law reports. Rama swept to a historic fourth mandate in May 2025, on a ticket of joining the bloc by 2030.

Belgium will join the group of countries that will recognize the state of Palestine at this month’s U.N. General Assembly and will impose sanctions on Israel over the war in Gaza, Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot announced overnight. The recognition of Palestine would only be formalized if Hamas releases all remaining Israeli hostages kidnapped in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and the militant group “no longer has any role in managing Palestine,” Prévot said. In the meantime, Belgium will also impose “firm sanctions” on the Israeli government, Prévot said. The measures include a ban on importing products from illegal settlements, a review of public procurement policies with Israeli companies and restrictions on consular assistance to Belgians living in illegal settlements. Prévot said two “extremist” Israeli ministers, several “violent settlers” and Hamas leaders would be designated “persona non grata” in Belgium. While he didn’t name the ministers, they are likely to be Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who have been sanctioned by other countries including the U.K. over accusations they incite violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. “This is not about sanctioning the Israeli people but about ensuring that their government respects international and humanitarian law and taking action to try to change the situation on the ground,” Prévot said. In July, French President Emmanuel Macron said France would recognize a Palestinian state at the U.N. meeting, due to be held from Sept. 9 to 23 in New York, and more than a dozen other Western countries have since said they would do the same. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously said the move feeds antisemitism, “rewards Hamas’s monstrous terrorism & punishes its victims.” In his post in the early hours of Tuesday, Prévot said Belgium would make a “firm commitment to calling for European measures targeting Hamas and supporting new Belgian initiatives to combat antisemitism, further mobilizing all our security services and involving representatives of Jewish communities.” Prévot also voiced support for the EU to suspend its association agreement with Israel. The European Commission has proposed suspending parts of the agreement dealing with research and development after concluding Israel had breached its human rights obligations under the deal, but the proposal has so far been blocked because Germany, among others, wasn’t willing to support penalizing Israel in this way. Prévot and his centrist Les Engagés party last month threatened to block government business if their Flemish nationalist and liberal coalition partners obstructed their plans to take a tougher stance against Israel. The Belgian government has since had multiple crisis meetings seeking to resolve the impasse.