European Union leaders were taken by surprise when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held his somewhat theatrical press conference on April 30, sharing with the world that Israel took possession of Iran’s nuclear program secret archives. The EU, both headquarters and its main member states, considered Netanyahu’s presentation to be directed at them, as it was clear that the US administration knew about these documents. In fact, Brussels realized that the White House, the CIA and the secretary of state were fully briefed by Israel. The EU was not.
A senior EU official close to EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini told Al-Monitor that Brussels highly appreciates Israel’s intelligence capacities, as well as the rhetorical skills of the prime minister. Yet the dramatic aspect of these revelations lied more in the operation of retrieving the physical documents than in their content.
