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EU Confidential

Leo Varadkar on Donald Trump, and the EU’s Israel dilemma

EU Confidential

POLITICO

Politics, News Commentary, News

4.4175 Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The EU-Israel relationship is at a tipping point.  This week on EU Confidential, host Sarah Wheaton breaks down how EU leaders are calling for scrutiny of a long-standing trade agreement between Brussels and Israel, as Gaza faces famine amid an ongoing Israeli military offensive. Rym Momtaz, editor-in-chief of the Strategic Europe blog at Carnegie Europe and an expert on European and Middle Eastern politics, joins to explain what’s driving the shift — and whether it could lead to real consequences. Later, former Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar drops into the studio to strategize on how to handle Trump 2.0, the rise of “identity politics” globally and the EU-U.K. rapprochement.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Today's episode is presented by the European Biodiesel board.

0:04.2

And at the EBB, we work so hard on combating fraud and push the Commission in Europe to do more.

0:12.9

The short-term issue that we've got is that by bringing fraudulent biodiesel, we are cheating the EU's climate ambitions. The bigger one

0:23.1

is that the fraud erodes the trust and the political confidence in our industry.

0:31.5

Amazon offers employees up to £8,000 for education and training, Like Juliet. She's now a trained technician.

0:39.7

And to her, the sound of machinery in need of repair,

0:44.7

reminds her of how far she's come.

0:47.9

In two years, she's landed her dream job,

0:51.2

providing her with valuable skills.

0:53.6

That's up to £8,000 for education and training at Amazon.

0:57.0

Eligibility conditions apply.

1:00.0

There is a strong majority in favour of review of Article 2 of our association agreement with Israel.

1:08.0

We will launch this exercise and in the meantime it is up to Israel. We will launch this exercise, and in the meantime it is up to Israel to unblock the humanitarian

1:16.6

aid.

1:17.6

Saving lives must be our top priority.

1:21.6

That was Kayakhalis, the EU's foreign policy chief, laying out a move that, despite the technical wording,

1:29.2

could reshape how Europe engages with Israel.

1:33.7

The decision came earlier this week, after mounting pressure from several EU member countries.

1:39.9

Their message, Brussels needs to step up as Israel continues a military onslaught combined with

1:46.7

a blockade of food and other necessities that's pushing people towards starvation.

1:52.9

Just a day later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he wants to avoid a humanitarian

1:58.6

crisis in Gaza and maintain ally support as Israeli troops

...

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