15 member states of the European Union called on the European Commission to speed up the disbursement of emergency aid to Palestine which was postponed due to “a controversy over the content of some textbooks and allegations that they contain anti-Semitic texts.”
The American newspaper Politico revealed on Monday that a group of EU countries led by Ireland expressed their concerns about “the continued delay in disbursing the European Union’s aid to Palestine for the year 2021 against the background of funding conditions imposed by the Commission and linking it to education reform in Palestine.
This came in a letter sent by the 15 countries on April 8 to the European Commission according to the American newspaper.
The letter was signed by the foreign ministers of Ireland Belgium Estonia Finland France Greece the Greek Cypriot administration Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Poland Portugal Spain and Sweden.
Ministers are also expected to raise the issue at a meeting of top EU diplomats in Luxembourg.
The signatories to the letter called for the funding to be released “as soon as possible”; because “the Palestinian Authority is in a difficult situation and is suffering from a severe financial crisis which is further complicated by the inflation of oil and wheat prices due to the war in Ukraine.
In their letter they pointed out that the European Commission’s latest proposal to link aid to the inclusion of reforms in the education sector “does not enjoy broad support” among EU countries.
