Foreign ministers meeting in Denmark will discuss a proposal to suspend EU funding to Israeli start-ups as initial punishment for the situation in Gaza.
But the bloc has so far failed to garner the majority needed to take that step — let alone move ahead with more forceful measures against Israel.
“I’m not very optimistic, and today we are definitely not going to adopt decisions,” Kallas told journalists at the start of the Denmark meeting.
“It sends a signal that we are divided.”
Splits within the European Union between countries backing Israel and those favouring the Palestinians have seen the 27-nation bloc often left hamstrung in the face of the dire humanitarian crisis in the besieged and bombardment enclave.
A string of EU countries are pushing for more far-reaching punishment for Israel, but have been frustrated.
Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, insisted the bloc “must change words into action”.
He stated that Copenhagen backed suspending trade cooperation with Israel, sanctioning far-right Israeli ministers, and banning imports from illegal settlements.
Israel is facing pressure at home and abroad to end its offensive in Gaza, where the vast majority of the population has been displaced at least once and the United Nations has declared a famine.
The war in Gaza has killed at least 63,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Gaza that the UN considers reliable.
