Michael Mann, the EU ambassador to Israel, finds himself at the center of an increasingly sharp confrontation, after the EU officially adopted sanctions last week on the Regavim and Amana organizations and "extremist settlers", as Brussels describes them, operating beyond the Green Line. The measure met with a strongly worded condemnation from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
That is not all. In the coming weeks, the EU is due to discuss a series of additional sanctions on Israel. On the agenda are personal sanctions on Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, after his appearance on social media taunting detainees from a flotilla attempting to break Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip, and a proposal to ban trade with West Bank settlements.
That proposal, if accepted, will be a step up in the tension between the EU and Israel, as it will tie trade to politics, and will be liable to damage Israeli exports.
Israel is trying behind the scenes to forestall the initiative, but sources say that it is to early to tell how it will react if the proposal goes through.
"Relations between Israel and the EU have become tough lately, there’s no doubt about that," Mann admits in an interview with "Globes", "but we believe that there’s time to rebuild them."
Mann makes clear that the EU has no hesitation in acting vis-à-vis Israel; "with a combination of diplomatic steps and political pressure" to signal to the government that it stands by its values in respect of human rights in cases where Israel fails to do so, and that in his view the sympathy for Israel felt in Europe after the attacks of October 7 2023 has given way to "a degree of fear" at its current actions.
Mann (59) took up his post in Israel nine months ago, a period in which the breach between the government in Jerusalem and most European governments and the European Commission in Brussels has been especially wide.
Although the EU is not a state, the task of its ambassador is similar to that of the ambassador of a sovereign country, but restricted to matters within the control of Brussels: trade, scientific cooperation, standards, and so forth.
"The sanctions proposal was initiated by Sweden and France," Mann says. "It is currently being discussed internally within the EU, but at this stage it’s impossible to predict what will be decided."
Mann points out that products from the settlements are already not entitled to the same trade terms as products from within the Green Line (and the State of Israel indemnifies manufacturers against the additional tariffs, A.U.), "but the proposal is in effect to ban these imports. The question at the moment is whether the decision has to be unanimous or by a special majority in order to be accepted," he says.
While the Czech Republic promised last week that it would torpedo any vote against Israel concerning trade in which a unanimous decision was required, to avoid a special majority Israel will need the joint support of Germany and of Italy, which has been sharply critical of Israel recently.
Mann seeks to stress that decisions that have been made so far in Brussels "are not sanctions on the State of Israel but sanctions on certain people and organizations that we consider to have breached human rights according to the law. We have a strict examination procedure, and this is a process that is carried out very carefully."
>Sending a message
Do you think that these sanctions have any impact on Israeli policy?
"Well we certainly received a strong reaction from certain sections in Israel, so I think that probably yes, they do have an impact. But beyond that, it’s important that we as the EU should lay down a marker. For us, human rights and strict observance of the norms of international law are extremely important. We feel that if these people breached those norms then we have to demonstrate that we mean what we say. And as far as we are concerned, it’s also important to send a message to other people who may be considering carrying out violent actions on the West Bank."
In other words, in your opinion the EU has a pressure lever on Israeli policy?
"We have a deep relationship with Israel. Israel has been a partner of the EU ever since it was founded. We are Israel’s biggest trading partner, we’re the second biggest investor in Israel. Israel is deeply involved in European programs such as Erasmus (student exchanges) and Horizon (scientific research and development), but at the same time we have fears.
"We don’t see eye to eye on the Israel-Palestinian dispute, for example. And so we use political pressure to try to make our stance clear. We use diplomacy, but, as you know, as we saw in September (when the European Commission suspended budgets for collaboration with Israel and recommended suspending the free trade agreement with it, A.U.), we made a decision to put certain measures on the table to try to exert a little pressure in Israel. I hope that with a mix of diplomacy and a little pressure, and perhaps when the election season in Israel is behind us, we will be able to put the situation back onto a better track."
Man says that during his time in Israel so far he has become aware of Europe’s image in the eyes of some of the Israeli public, and of the perception that "Europe is finished" because of a shrinking population, illegal immigration, a lack of innovation, and military impotence. He objects to that image. "This is a terribly shallow caricature of Europe," he says. "We are developed, relatively wealthy countries. We have high tech, and we may have lower birth rates than some other countries but we are still half a billion people. We’re a huge economy and the largest single market in the world. We set standards. There are problems with immigration, there’s a Muslim population, but it’s an integrated part of society.
"So I’m a little taken aback by the caricature of Europe that I hear, because it’s overdone. The world is going through a stormy period at the moment, but I think that we are proud to be Europeans, that we are a sort of basis for the global international order. And we want to try to encourage others to abide by it."
Involved in Iran
What about your lack of involvement in Iran?
"The fact that we were not directly involved in the war with Iran does not mean that we are irrelevant to it. We are even currently discussing ways in which we can help as part of a coalition that is forming to maintain security in the Strait of Hormuz after the hostilities are over. We are playing an important role in international diplomacy on Iran through economic and political pressure."
Mann has four more years in Israel. This month he will participate in the Herzliya Conference held by the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Reichman University. He says that if he could communicate one perception back to EU headquarters these days it would be about how traumatic the Hamas terrorist actions on October 7 2023 were for Israeli society.
"I worked on Israel from Brussels before I came here, and I didn’t really understand the depth of the trauma felt in Israel on October 7. I didn’t properly understand what Israel was feeling, the existential threat and the sense of being under attack on all fronts. One of my aims in my role is to try to ensure that people in office in EU headquarters and in Europe understand the context in which Israel operates.
"I think that we have somewhat got ourselves into a situation in which the rhetoric on both sides has become a little too sharp. I think that on both sides, both in Europe and in Israel, we should take a step back and try to calm things down, and particularly to try to understand each other a little better."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 3, 2026.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2026.