EU leaders condemn Trump’s Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ at Munich conference

European leaders criticised US President Donald Trump’s Gaza “Board of Peace” for bypassing the UN mandate that supported its creation on Friday.

At the Munich Security Conference, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, accused Trump of using the Board of Peace as a personal vehicle.

Trump unveiled the initiative at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last month.

The board includes nearly all major Middle Eastern countries as members, including Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Pakistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Indonesia are also members.

The text of its charter grants Trump wide-ranging powers as chair, allowing him to appoint and remove member states - a decision that can only be overturned by a two-thirds majority.

Kallas said that while a UN Security Council resolution gave the board a mandate to manage Gaza’s post-war governance and reconstruction, Trump’s body makes no reference to Gaza or the UN.

She added that the original resolution stipulated the board would be “limited in time”, that it provided for Palestinians to have a say, and that it explicitly referred to Gaza. 

“The statute for the Board of Peace makes no reference to any of these things,” Kallas told the conference.

Spain’s foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, raised similar concerns, noting that Europe - one of the Palestinian Authority’s principal funders - had been excluded from the initiative.

US Democratic senator Chris Murphy also criticised the “rushed Board of Peace” and what he described as Trump’s “consistent campaign to alienate our friends in Europe”.

He further accused the US president of “engineering for press releases and banners, not actual substance”, and said he was failing to use his leverage over Israel to push for the entry of aid into Gaza, its reconstruction and self-governance.

In response to a question about the implementation of Trump’s ceasefire and “framework” for Gaza’s future, Murphy said: “Is there a ceasefire?”, noting that “hundreds of Gazans have been killed since the announcement”.

'No answers'

On Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the security conference that the UN “could not solve the war in Gaza” and had “played virtually no role” in resolving global conflicts.

“The United Nations still has tremendous potential to be a tool for good in the world,” he told the conference.

“But we cannot ignore that, today, on the most pressing matters before us, it has no answers and has played virtually no role. It could not solve the war in Gaza.”

Speaking at a side event, Trump-appointed high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, urged that his board “needs to move very fast”.

“If we do not, we are not going to implement the second phase of the ceasefire but the second phase of the war,” he said, adding that he was not willing to engage with allegations of Israeli genocide.

“For Gaza to be reconstructed, we need to have the technocratic committee in Gaza effectively governing, weapons decommissioned and Israeli withdrawal,” he added. 

Meanwhile, Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, warned leaders that they were living in a “bubble of illusion”.

“While we are talking, the Israeli government has declared that the whole West Bank is available for settlements,” Barghouti said.

“They have practically nailed the final nail in the coffin of the Oslo agreement in front of the whole world.”

Multi-billion dollar reconstruction plan

The fraught discussions come days ahead of the first meeting of the Board of Peace scheduled on 19 February.

Reuters reported on Thursday that Trump is set to announce a multi-billion-dollar reconstruction plan for Gaza and share details on a United Nations-mandated stabilisation force.

The report said that around 20 countries, including heads of state, will attend the meeting in Washington, DC.

Gaza: Palestinians living along the 'Yellow Line' endure daily Israeli attacks

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Reuters reported that Trump will announce commitments from “several countries” to provide “several thousand troops” to the stabilisation force.

​​Indonesia said on Tuesday that it is preparing to deploy up to 8,000 soldiers to Gaza under Trump’s peace plan. The potential mobilisation was announced following a meeting between Indonesia’s army chief of staff, Maruli Simanjuntak, and President Prabowo Subianto. 

"We are just preparing ourselves in case an agreement is reached and we have to send peacekeeping forces," Prabowo told journalists.  

Meanwhile, Gaza’s fragile ceasefire has been repeatedly violated by near-daily Israeli strikes, which have killed nearly 600 Palestinians since October.

Israel has killed more than 72,000 people in total since October 2023.

The Gaza Strip is currently divided into two areas by a so-called “Yellow Line”, with Israel occupying around 53 percent of the enclave and the centre held by Hamas as part of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement.

In practice, however, Israel continues to impose a full blockade on Gaza.