 The EU has also been critical of Israel's Gaza blockade, referring to it as "collective punishment".EU first endorsed the idea of Palestinian statehood in its 1999 Berlin Declaration.Before that, the EU and its predecessor, the EC, had since 1973 through various declarations legitimized Palestinian rights in the form of recognizing the Palestinians as "a people", the need for them to have "homeland" and exercising their "right to self-determination".