Fayyad Starts from Brussels the Trip to Mobilize Financial Support
Published April 11th, 2007
Finance Minister Salam Fayyad said on Tuesday before setting off a trip abroad to drum up aid, that the Palestinian Authority is operating on a quarter of the funds it needs to finance its activities.
“Minimally, I estimate expenditures of the Palestinian Authority at $160 million a month at present. What we have is no more than $40 million a month,” Fayyad told Reuters, adding “Clearly this is not something that can be sustained.”
EU officials warned against expecting too much from a meeting between Fayyad and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Union’s external relations commissioner, in Brussels on Wednesday.
They said the meeting was important to hear from Fayyad — who won international praise for reforming Palestinian finances under the late Yasser Arafat — what help he needs and when his ministry may be ready to receive it.
But asked when the 27-nation bloc would decide on resuming direct aid, one EU official said: “It’s going to take a while. (Fayyad’s visit) is one step, definitely not the final, we are still in the exploratory phase.”
Fayyad meets Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and foreign affair minister Jonas Gahr St?re on Thursday and will travel to Washington to attend the International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings.
Fayyad said his talks would “focus on mobilizing financial support to help us deal with the magnitude of the crisis we face and to discuss ways and means necessary to re-establish normal relations between the Palestinian Authority and the international community”.
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