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fullscreen Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris. Archive image. Photo: Harry Nakos/AP/TT
Four EU countries are approaching a decision to soon recognize Palestine as a state.
– There is no wrong time to do the right thing, and the right thing right now is to recognize Palestine as a state, says Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris.
Ireland, Spain, Malta and Slovenia jointly announced in March that they were “ready to recognize Palestine” as soon as all the necessary criteria were met, and now there are several signals that the time is approaching.
On Thursday, Slovenia’s government sent a decree on the matter to parliament, which will approve a recognition, according to Prime Minister Robert Golob, to “end the atrocities committed in Gaza as soon as possible.”
Slovenia is aiming for recognition before June 13, but Golob says, according to AFP, that a decision could be made earlier than that.
In Ireland, Simon Harris says at a press conference that earlier this week he spoke with his Spanish colleague Pedro Sánchez and that they both have a “clear plan” for the path to recognition.
They are said to have agreed not to give a date when a confession could take place. According to sources at the Irish public service company RTE, it could happen on May 21.
– The time is approaching for Ireland to show leadership together with other countries so that we can move closer to a two-state solution, says Harris.
Sweden’s recognition of Palestine as an independent country was made in 2014, and is so far the only such marking made by an EU country.
A number of Eastern EU countries have also recognized Palestine, but this was done in a concerted Eastern Bloc initiative in the 1980s, long before they became EU members. A common line nowadays in Europe is that such a decision should be taken by the EU as a whole.