EU ministers meet to discuss suspending Palestinian aid

European Union foreign ministers will meet today to try to resolve divisions within the 27-member bloc over whether to continue aid payments to Palestinians a day after the European Commission backtracked on an announcement suspending all such aid, Reuters reported.

The U-turn came after member states including Spain and France said they opposed the suspension announced by Neighbourhood and Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi yesterday.

The EU’s disarray reflected longstanding divisions within the bloc over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Austria and Germany announced yesterday they were suspending their development aid to Palestinians.

EU ministers will hold an emergency meeting in Muscat, Oman, where a meeting of EU and Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers was already taking place, the bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

READ: A betrayal: Spain slams EUs decision to freeze aid to Palestine

The suspension of the payments – punishing all the Palestinian people – would have damaged the EU interests in the region and would have only further emboldened terrorists.

— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) October 9, 2023

He added on Tuesday that he had invited Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and his Palestinian counterpart Riyad Al-Maliki to join the meeting.

Ahead of the meeting, some countries had already set out their positions.

Spain’s acting Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said  that Madrid opposed the proposed suspension, arguing that Palestinian territories are likely to need more aid in the near future as a result of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

“This cooperation must continue; we cannot confuse Hamas, which is on the list of EU’s terrorist groups, with the Palestinian population,” Albares told Spanish radio Cadena SER.

France said that its aid payments to the Palestinian territories were “fully consistent” with its commitments.

“We are not in favour of suspending aid which directly benefits the Palestinian populations and made this known to the European Commission yesterday,” its foreign ministry said in a statement.

French aid to Palestinians amounted to €95 million ($100.7 million) in 2022, according to the statement.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said a balance needed to be struck between providing aid and cutting off the financing of terrorists.

“On the one hand we have to have humanitarian help so people can be supported to have water and things to eat, and at the same time we need to ensure nothing happens that supports structures linked to terrorism,” Scholz said at a two-day cabinet retreat in Hamburg with French President E mmanuel Macron and his cabinet.

He added: “We are sure this is not happening, but it is essential to check every time.”

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala backed a suspension. “I am convinced that it would be right now to suspend payments and start a thorough review of the whole system of aid to Palestinians from the EU,” he said in a post on X.

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