Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid decided not to meet his Norwegian counterpart Anniken Huitfeldt during her visit to Israel in September.
Diplomatic sources in Tel Aviv said Lapid's decision comes in protest against Norway’s announcement in June to label products from Israeli settlements with their place of origin.
They stressed that Israel had failed to convince relevant Norwegian authorities to retract this decision.
Sources noted that Huitfeldt will visit Israel and the West Bank to participate in the International Donor Group for Palestine’s meeting.
Norway is the largest donor country to the Palestinian Authority. It helped to broker the 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords, which provided for interim and limited Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories.
Deputy Director General of Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry Aliza Bin-Noun had met with Norway's Ambassador to Israel, Kare Reidar Aas, who conveyed to her the Norwegian minister’s request to meet with Lapid.
In response, Bin-Noun recalled to the ambassador Norway's negative moves toward Israel and claimed that the upcoming elections make it “impossible” to hold a meeting with the Prime Minister.
The European Commission recommended its member states to follow this practice in 2015, a decision confirmed by the European Court of Justice in 2019.
Norway said that the principle behind its decision, as set out in the 2019 ruling, is that consumers should not be deceived by misleading labelling on the origin or products.
