Left Bloc demands removal of Portuguese flag from vessel carrying arms to Israel

However, legal experts say that the ship is not violating the law and, therefore, Portugal cannot remove its flag.

What?

On Monday, the Left Bloc delivered a petition with 3,000 signatures to the Council of Ministers, demanding that the Portuguese flag be removed from the MV Kathrin, a ship carrying explosives to be sent to Israel.

“Paulo Rangel (Portugal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs) will become known as the boatman of the bombs that are carrying out the genocide in Gaza, the massacre of the Palestinian people,” accused leader Mariana Mortágua outside the building.

The BE leader warned that “in the name of its aid and its complicity with the Netanyahu regime”, “Portugal could be accused in the future in international court of complicity with the genocide, for having broken the rules we agreed not to send arms to Israel” and explained that the petition serves to “ensure that this doesn’t happen”.

For Mortágua, this is not only a moral and political issue, but also a legal one, since “international law applies in Portugal” and prevents the country from “sponsoring the shipment of weapons that are serving Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people”.

“The decision that this government is taking is jeopardising Portugal’s position before international justice,” she said.

She added: “Paulo Rangel has one thing to do, and that is to remove the Portuguese flag from the ship,” insisted the Bloc member, who also demanded that the Foreign Affairs Minister explain in Parliament “why he didn’t admit from the outset that the ship was carrying weapons, was destined for Israel, had a Portuguese flag” and why he “didn’t remove the flag”.

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Background

At the end of August, the party had already sent three questions about the vessel to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “Has the Government already removed the flag from the ship banned from docking in Namibian ports for transporting weapons to Israel? Will the Government prohibit any ship sailing the Portuguese flag from being involved in the transport of weapons, ammunition and military equipment to Israel? Or will you make Portugal an accomplice in the ongoing massacre?”

On August 29, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel, denied that the ship in question was transporting arms, ammunition or war material, stressing that it was only carrying explosives - a position that he has now changed.

At the time, he also said that the ship MV Kathrin, belonging to a German company, was not bound for Israel, but for Montenegro and Slovenia - which is true, but the shipping will then make its way to Israel.

Legal experts’ views

However, experts interviewed by PÚBLICO consider that there is no ‘legal support’ for withdrawing the Portuguese flag from the ship.

For Captain João Fonseca Ribeiro, who formerly was the Director-General of the Directorate-General for Maritime Policy, “there is no reason of international law that overrides the shipowner’s right to transport the cargo,'“ he told PÚBLICO, pointing out that international maritime transport is established in European Union commercial law.

According to João Fonseca Ribeiro, ‘‘there is no European resolution preventing the transport of arms to Israel on European-flagged ships”. If it does so, without changing the regulations, Portugal will be acting “unilaterally” and “contrary to European legislation”.

Vasco Becker-Weinberg, a specialist in international law and former Christian Democratic Member of Parliament, also argues that there are “no grounds” for withdrawing the flag, since the shipowner is not “violating international law”.

Furthermore, he points out, “changing the flag is extremely complex from a technical point of view” because “the ship's flag is what associates it with the area in which it is registered”.

Vasco Becker-Weinberg also points out that the shipowner, being German, is part of an EU member state, which would make it more difficult to remove the flag.

According to says João Fonseca Ribeiro, for Portugal to withdraw the flag from the cargo ship, “there would have to be a resolution obliging the Madeira International Shipping Registry to withdraw the flag from a ship registered in Portugal.”

However, for the captain, the ‘argument [for doing so] would be weak’.

The Government has also considered the issue to be legally “complex”.

António Leitão Amaro, Minister of the Presidency, admitted, last Thursday, that the executive is analyzing the “legality” of removing the pavilion.