The Spanish Supreme Court considers that the agreements of municipalities not to sign agreements with Israeli institutions, nor contract with companies linked to this country, are discriminatory and violate fundamental rights.
The high court sets this criterion after analyzing the specific case of the Reinosa City Council (north), which in July 2016 approved an agreement in which it joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel (BDS) movement, announcing specific measures regarding the relationship with companies and institutions in this country.
Reinosa declared itself as an “Israeli Apartheid Free Space” and approved disseminating it to the public, but the Supreme Court considers that this “implies discrimination against third parties and infringement of fundamental rights,” according to the ruling.
In this sense, it annuls the epigraph that asks to “adopt the appropriate legal measures” to prevent “hiring services or buying products from companies complicit in violations of International Law of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
And it does the same with the section that agrees “not to sign any convention or agreement with public institutions, companies and organizations that participate, collaborate or obtain economic benefit from the violation of International Law” and the one that asks to promote cooperation with the BDS movement.
With this resolution, the Spanish high court gives reason to the Action and Communication Association on the Middle East (ACOM), which argued that the agreement “does not respect the principles of equality and free competition in the award of contracts of the corporation.”
