The European Commission on Friday distanced itself from remarks by Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera, who described Israel’s military assault in Gaza as genocide.
“It’s not up to the Commission to judge on this question and definition, but really for the courts,” said Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho when asked if Ribera was speaking on behalf of the institution. “And there has been no College decision on this particular subject. That’s what I can say.”
“Establishing whether international crimes, including genocide, have been committed, is the competence of national courts as well as international courts and tribunals, which may have jurisdiction. And the legal qualification of such an act, an act of genocide, does require the proper establishment of facts and a finding of law,” added spokesperson Anouar El Anouni.
Ribera, during a speech at Sciences Po on Thursday, became the highest-level official from an EU institution to use the term “genocide” in reference to Israel’s war on Gaza.
“The genocide in Gaza exposes Europe’s failure to act and speak with one voice, even as protests spread across European cities and 14 U.N. Security Council members call for an immediate ceasefire,” she told students.
Her comments drew swift condemnation from Israel. Its foreign ministry described Ribera’s remarks as “baseless allegations,” adding that Ribera had “made herself a mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda.”
Ribera has been one of Brussels’ staunchest critics of Israel’s war on Gaza, but Thursday’s speech marked the first time she explicitly used the word genocide.
In an interview with POLITICO in August, she said the starvation, displacement and killing in Gaza “looks very much” like genocide, and called on the EU to consider suspending its Association Agreement with Israel.
Hamas-led militants stormed out of the Gaza Strip into nearby Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians.
Ferdinand Knapp contributed to this report.
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