The EU grows a spine

Posted on 04/12/2007 by Meryl Yourish

Miracle of miracles, the EU has decided that Hamas isn’t fooling anyone.

EU Says No to Aiding Palestinian Unity Government
New Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad has failed to convince the European Union to agree to resume aid to the Palestinian Authority despite what he called a “very acute financial crisis”.

Speaking in Brussels on Wednesday, Fayyad, a respected independent and a former senior World Bank official, warned that the Palestinian coffers only had about a quarter of the funds required for 2007, a shortfall of around a billion euros ($1.3 billion).

“These are very difficult times for the Palestinian people,” he told reporters at a joint press conference with EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner. The Finance Minister added that if the international community did not come to the aid of the Palestinians, the outcome would be “devastating”.

[…] At the Brussels press conference, Ferrero-Waldner said this temporary mechanism would continue but offered Fayyad technical assistance to get his finance ministry in order.

She also repeated the international demands that the Palestinian government renounce violence, formally recognize Israel’s right to exist and abide by former agreements. Ferrero-Waldner said until that happened the EU would only deal with what it considered to be Western-friendly members of the new Palestinian Fatah-Hamas unity government, which took power in March this year.

Well, for now, the situation stands at: The EU will only give the Palestinians $1 billion in aid per year, and not a euro more.

This finance minister, by the way, is the subject of many glowing news articles talking about what a “reformer” he is, and how he’s going to stop the thievery. Funny. They’re still managing to steal the money if he can’t account for $1.3 billion dollars. But he’s a reformer, you see. I’m not quite sure why, but he is.

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3 Responses to The EU grows a spine

  1. chsw says:
    04/12/2007 at 1:46 pm

    $ 1 billion is still an expensive “spine.”

    I think that the EU will evolve vertebrae when that $ 1 billion becomes $ 0.

    chsw

  2. russ says:
    04/12/2007 at 3:54 pm

    Sounds to me as though is fooling the EU, if the latter thinks that dealing with “Western-friendly members of the .. government” is actually excluding Hamas.

  3. Ed Hausman says:
    04/13/2007 at 8:55 pm

    Sit down with the big Arab powers and explain the facts of life. They won’t be allowed to use the Palestinian stick to beat Israel anymore.

    Then find homes for the poor starving refugees on Arab sand and the EU will gladly finance the resettlement and the compensation.

    (THAT should make an interesting precedent for a few years hence when the Europeans are looking to get rid of their own antagonistic Muslim hordes.)

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