The attack on Israel: Europe fears the effects of a military escalation in the Middle East and prepares new sanctions against Iran

The institutions of the European Union and the bloc’s 27 governments (each with its own nuances) stood by Israel over the weekend and condemned the Israeli attack, but they also called for restraint from Israel. Europe fears that the situation in the Middle East, at high tension after the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel on 7 October, will degenerate into a regional war with consequent negative effects for Europeans, from energy supplies to the fear of waves of refugees .

Foreign ministers will meet urgently this Tuesday at the request of the head of European diplomacy, the Spanish-Argentine Josep Borrell. And national leaders will do so on Wednesday and Thursday, in a summit scheduled for two months but which will modify its agenda to include the situation in the Middle East. Borrell declared, after the announcement of the meeting of foreign ministers: “On behalf of the member states of the European Union, I condemn in the strongest terms the Iranian attack against Israel and I invite all parties to exercise moderation.”

European diplomacy believes that Iran will be satisfied with having demonstrated that it can launch a large salvo of drones and missiles against Israel, and at the same time Israel will be able to claim to be untouchable because its defensive systems (and the help of its Western allies and Jordan) will allow it. They allowed 99% of Iranian drones to be shot down, causing only minor damage to a military base. Europe too believes that Iran did not want to go further because he warned, through Iraq and Turkey, the Americans days before the launch of the drones and missiles.

This gave Israel and the Westerners who helped (Americans, French and British) time to prepare to shoot down the drones.

But Europe, say European diplomatic sources, He is afraid because he fears that the war could intensify and degenerate. For this reason he calls for moderation from Israel, as well as condemning Iran and preparing new sanctions against Tehran.

The fears

Above all, Europeans fear war in the region cause an increase in hydrocarbon prices (the European Commission confirmed this Monday that in 2023 Europe’s external dependence on oil has risen to 97.9% of its total consumption), just as it begins to control the peak of inflation of the last two years, caused by the energy crisis derived from the Russian oil attack on Ukraine.

The other fear crops up in Europe every time there is a crisis in Africa or the Middle East: refugees. Since more than a million Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans arrived on European territory via Turkey, the Aegean, Greece and the Balkans in the second half of 2015 and the first half of 2016, the Europeans have done everything possible to prevent such a scenario from happening again. That’s why they’re signing immigration agreements with countries in the Middle East and North Africa, to act as border gendarmes preventing exits.

The latest ones have been negotiated with Tunisia and Mauritania and another with Egypt has just been announced. But they know that if there is a massive departure, as in 2015, from Syria, no government in the region will single-handedly hire millions of people, then, as Turkey did, allow their passage to Europe.

Yes political relations between Europeans and Iranians are minimal and European diplomacy does not have a particular predilection for the Iranian regime, Europeans believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu survives politically only thanks to the ongoing war against Hamas (with almost 35,000 civilian victims in six and a half months) and a possible confrontation , more or less significant, against Iran, aggravated by the launch of drones and missiles on Saturday evening.