European Union refuses to resume financial aid for Palestinian Authority
Published April 12th, 2007
Brussels, 11 April - At a meeting with European Union officials and Commissioners Palestinian finance minister Salam Fayyad was told that the European Union would not resume financial aid to the Palestinian National Authority, but would continue to direct limited amounts of financial assistance directly to receivers of its own choice, as it had done since Hamas won the parliamentary elections in January 2006. Besides its tax and customs revenues, which the Oslo Accords oblige the Israeli government to hand over to the Palestinian Authority, the main source of revenue for the PA has been the financial assistance from the European Union. With it, the European Union had practically relieved Israel from its legal obligations as occupying power towards the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Speaking to journalists at a joint press conference in Brussels with EU external affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Salam Fayyad said that if the international community did not come to the aid of the Palestinians, the outcome would be devastating. What might have sounded like a gloomy prophecy is corroborated by the fact that the European Union, while deciding not to grant financial to the Palestinian Authority, failed to call on Israel to respect previous agreements and hand over to the Palestinian Authority the tax and customs revenues it is legally entitled to.
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