High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas holds a press conference in Aqaba, Jordan, Dec. 14, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alaa Al Sukhni

JNS.org — The European Union Foreign Affairs Council has decided to resume its Association Council meetings with Israel, new EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said after meeting European foreign ministers on Monday.

No date has been set for the first meeting, which Kallas said she wants to hold “as soon as possible.” The summit will be followed by the first high-level dialogue with the Palestinian Authority, the EU diplomat added.

The EU-Israel Association Council, which last convened in 2022 during the premiership of Yair Lapid after a 10-year pause, is a meeting meant to be held annually between Jerusalem and the foreign ministers of all 27 member states of the European Union to discuss matters of mutual concern.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry in a statement cited by local press called the development “an important step in the relationship between the European Union and Israel,” saying the move shows “the intention to open a new page of cooperation and instructive dialogue between Israel and the EU.”

The statement noted that the EU announcement followed talks held between Kallas and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in Malta on Dec. 4.

Jerusalem views the Association Council as a vital forum to advance collaboration in various fields with its largest trade partner — the European Union accounts for almost 30 percent of Israel’s trade in goods — and present its positions on the ongoing wars on its borders and the broader region.

In November, during the final weeks of his five-year term, Kallas’s predecessor, former European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell, proposed to suspend all dialogue with Jerusalem over alleged human rights abuses and violations of international law in Gaza.

A decision to formally suspend the political dialogue with Israel in the framework of the EU-Israel Association Agreement would require unanimity, which meant that the move was almost certain to fail.

Borrell’s tenure was marked by incessant criticism of Israel and a lack of action against Iran. In September, then-Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Borrell would not be welcome for an official visit the latter had planned. Jerusalem then proposed an alternative date, after Borrell’s retirement.

Kallas, a former leader of Estonia, took office on Dec. 1, replacing the Spanish diplomat. Kallas’s opinions on Israel and the Middle East are not widely known. During her three-year premiership, she made her name primarily as a prominent critic of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Following the November 2022 election victory of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she congratulated him, saying she was looking forward to strengthening the Baltic nation’s “close bond” with Israel.

“In difficult times, democracies stick together — this is the way to stand against pariah states and safeguard our freedom and sovereignty,” Kallas wrote in a statement posted to social media at the time.