The EU cannot talk about values when it supports and covers up the genocide being committed in Gaza

AKEL Political Bureau member and MP Giorgos Koukoumas

 

28 August 2025, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

“The EU cannot talk about values when it sides with the Netanyahu regime – a regime that from the very outset has aimed to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their land and expand the occupation and colonization,” AKEL MP Giorgos Koukoumas pointed out yesterday in Copenhagen at a conference organized by the Danish Parliament.

More specifically, G. Koukoumas, as a member of the House of Representatives delegation, spoke at the 27th Interparliamentary Conference on Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), within the framework of the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU, with the participation of delegations from the parliaments of all EU member states.

Intervening in the thematic debate on the role of the EU in the Middle East, G. Koukoumas argued that any discussion of the European Union’s role in the region is meaningless at a time when the EU and its leaders are either hiding behind their silence or openly supporting the first genocide of the 21st century – the genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza. “There are no more excuses for anyone,” he said, adding that “today, declarations of intent about the recognition of the state of Palestine are not enough, at a time when Palestine is being turned into a huge cemetery.” The reality, the AKEL MP continued, must be called by its name: this is an ongoing genocide – and it must be denounced as such by bringing to the Conference the demands of millions of people on the continent: namely that the EU-Israel Association Agreement should be suspended, an arms embargo be imposed and sanctions be applied against Israel.

Furthermore, the AKEL C.C. Spokesperson and MP G. Koukoumas reiterated the demand for the Middle East to be declared a zone free of weapons of mass destruction, which also refers to the nuclear arsenal that Israel has possessed for decades and its refusal to sign the UN Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. At the same time, G.Koukoumas again called for an end to the arms trade conducted by European countries with regimes responsible for flagrant violations of international law and human rights, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

“Europe’s role in the Middle East must be on the side of justice, on the side of peace, on the side of oppressed peoples—and not on the side of war, genocide, and occupying forces,” concluded the AKEL MP.

28.08.2025