Click to expand Image Palestinians stand behind a barrier as Israeli forces block farmers from accessing their lands in Halhul town near Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, on November 20, 2025. © 2025 Mosab Shawer/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images The European Union’s obligation to ban trade with Israel’s illegal settlements is not in question. But its leadership’s will to comply has long been.Following growing pressure from civil society, trade unions, legal scholars, some EU governments and members of the European Parliament, and a series of unilateral bans by some EUmember states, the European Commission could finally present a “list of options” to restrict that illegal trade at the EU level ahead of the July 13 EU foreign ministers gathering. But continuing to frame the ban as an “option” is misleading: as more than 50 groups emphasized in a June 22 letter to the commission, the only “option” that complies with international and EU law is a ban.Israel’s settlements are illegal. The transfer of civilians from Israel into the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) is a war crime, committed in a context of intensifying ethnic cleansing and apartheid against the Palestinian population, and a decades-long occupation that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found to be unlawful.In its 2024 advisory opinion, the Court found that all states have an obligation to “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the [OPT]”.The European Commission claims its trade policy complies with the obligations laid out by the ICJ, as the trade benefits granted to Israel under the bilateral association agreement do not extend to the illegal settlements.But that claim is patently flawed.In fact, even if tariffs on settlement goods and services were meticulously applied (which they aren’t), that still would not prevent trade with the settlements. And that trade contributes to their economic viability, in breach of international law.EU treatyprovisions and case law are clear: EU trade must comply with international law. Currently, it doesn’t. The commission has a duty to remedy that, by proposing a ban under the EU’s “Common Commercial Policy,” which would then need approval by a qualified majority of EU member states and by the European Parliament.The EU has spent decades expressing “concerns” while Palestinians suffered atrocitycrimes, as Israel’s illegal settlement policy and related abuses only intensified.It should at least stop bankrolling them. And that’s not an “option.”