Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša on Thursday defended a decision by his government that reportedly led to the softening of the European Union’s reaction this week to Israel’s plans to build homes in E1, an area in Judea east of Jerusalem and within the municipal boundary of Ma’ale Adumim.
“In truth, we have merely extricated Slovenia from the vicious cycle of losing credibility through the incessant, disproportionate condemnations of Israel for every move it makes,” Janša wrote on X about a report by the EUobserver news site. The report said that E.U. officials had intended to issue a condemnation “on behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states” on Aug. 23, but that Slovenia declined to go along with the intended condemnation. The E.U. then published a condemnation by Kaja Kallas, the E.U. high representative for foreign affairs, that stopped short of stating that her position was on behalf of all of the bloc’s member states.
Pravzaprav smo samo umaknili Slovenijo iz začaranega kroga izgubljanja kredibilnosti pri nenehnih neproporcionalnih obsodbah Izraela za vsako potezo. Medtem ko bruseljska birokracija ostaja tiho ob iztrebljanju celih vasi kristjanov v Nigeriji, pomorih lastnih ljudi s strani… https://t.co/DDu66XtT6v
— Janez Janša (@JJansaSDS) August 27, 2026
Unusually, Janša added a scathing criticism of what he described as an excessive focus by the E.U. on Israel, and foreign policy failures.
“While the Brussels bureaucracy remains silent on the extermination of entire Christian villages in Nigeria, the massacres of their own people by Hamas in Gaza, the massacres in Iran, or the increasingly frequent surges of antisemitism in Europe, it reacts to every announcement by Israel about some village’s establishment,” Janša wrote. “Double standards have brought the so-called foreign policy of the E.U. to near irrelevance. Whereas the president of the U.S. can prompt changes in energy prices with a single word, the E.U.'s empty foreign policy messages change or resolve nothing.”
In June, Slovenia’s new government, under Janša, scrapped the previous administration’s sanctions against Israel, including on the import of arms, products from Judea and Samaria, and on visits by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Slovenia’s former prime minister, Robert Golob of the left-wing Freedom Movement, was among the most hostile leaders to Israel in the European Union. His government imposed a ban on importing goods made by Israelis from Judea and Samaria, said it would endorse South Africa’s genocide lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and said it would comply with the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
In the May 10 election, Janša’s Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) obtained the second-highest number of votes, trailing the Freedom Movement by a narrow margin. Janša became prime minister on June 4 thanks to a coalition of right-wing movements.
In Kallas’s statement, she wrote: “The E.U. position is clear: Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, including in the E1 area, are illegal under international law,” she said in the statement. Implementation of the plan in the so-called E1 corridor would divide Judea and Samaria in two, “isolating East Jerusalem, and further eroding the viability of a two-state solution,” she added. Kallas also wrote that, “These developments take place as the West Bank experiences further instability and record levels of settler violence.”
She also wrote: “We urge the Government of Israel to withdraw the tender, halt its E1 plans as well as all other settlement expansion projects, and ensure accountability for settler violence.”
Groups that support Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria have challenged reports of a major increase in violence by Jews toward Arabs in the area, with the Regavim movement calling this narrative part of an orchestrated campaign.
Kalas’s condemnation was over the Israel Lands Authority’s announcement last week that it would market to contractors and entrepreneurs the first 1,400 housing units of E1 (“East 1”).
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not reply by press time to a request by JNS for a comment on the EUobserver report.
