Europe Urged To Keep Tight Rein on Aid to Palestinians
Citing alleged corruption by Palestinian recipients of aid money, the European Parliament’s Israel-relations czar urged more conditionality by E.U. donor states.
Fulvio Martusciello, the chairman of the parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Israel, issued the call during a parliamentary debate Wednesday in Strasbourg on E.U. funding for the Middle East, his office wrote in a statement.
“We are talking millions-euro projects that see part of their funds going to individuals who actually shouldn’t receive a single euro,” Martusciello, an Italian delegate for the center-right People’s Party bloc, said. “The money comes from E.U. taxpayers and we need to exercise tight control on it.”
Martusciello cited a 2013 report by the European Court of Auditors that found the Palestinians had been using European money for years to pay employees in the Gaza Strip, some of whom had not actually worked in seven years.
Palestinian Labor Minister Ahmed Majdalani defended the payments, saying the employees had families to support. Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since a bloody 2007 coup, has replaced with its own loyalists, the P.A. officials receiving the salaries.
The European Parliament in April 2014 adopted a nonbinding resolution saying that payroll problems raise concerns about money laundering and terrorist financing.
It also noted the Palestinian Authority’s controversial salary payments to the families of terrorists serving time in Israeli jails. In an unprecedented move, the parliament also called for future E.U. funding to be conditioned on Palestinian compliance with reform recommendations.
Set up in 1979, the delegation headed by Martusciello is responsible for parliamentary ties with Israel.
According to data discussed at the meeting, the European Union gives $335 million each year in aid to the Palestinian Authority, in addition to individual donations by member states. Since 1994, $7.7 billion in EU funds have been transferred to Ramallah, including for capacity building.
In 2013, E.U. humanitarian aid to Bangladesh, a disaster-prone and poor nation with a population of over 155 million, totaled in at $12.3 million, according to the European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department. In 2013, the department provided $37.7 million for humanitarian aid for approximately 6.5 million Palestinians.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
