Spain calls for EU aid to Palestine to be delivered promptly and without further conditions

Luxembourg, April 14 (EFE).- The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, requested on Monday that the financial aid proposed by the European Commission (EC) to the Palestinian Authority and to the Palestinians be delivered punctually, without reductions and “without further conditionalities.”

“The aid that the European Commission has on the table, I have insisted must be delivered punctually and must be at least the same amount that was delivered last year,” Albares told EFE during his participation in a Council of EU Foreign Ministers, where the situation in the Middle East was discussed.

The EC proposed on Monday a comprehensive multiannual support program of up to 1.6 billion euros to promote the recovery and resilience of Palestine until 2027, on the occasion of the first high-level dialogue with the Palestinian Authority (PA) that will take place today in Luxembourg and which will be attended by the Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohamed Mustafa, with whom Albares will hold a bilateral meeting.

Most of the disbursements will be linked to the PA’s progress in key reforms regarding fiscal sustainability, democratic governance, private sector development, and public infrastructure and services.

“Let us bear in mind that the Palestinian National Authority is facing extraordinarily difficult circumstances and is carrying out its reforms in a very scrupulous manner, under enormous pressure,” commented Albares.

In this context, in the opinion of the Spanish minister, the European Union “should not add more pressure; on the contrary, what it should do is help the Palestinian National Authority.”

He stated that he has indicated to the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, Kaja Kallas, and to the European Commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Suica, that the EU “must deliver funding both to the Palestinian National Authority and to the (UN agency for Palestinian Refugees) UNRWA, as planned without further conditionalities.”

Albares said that, from the EU, “all support for the two-state solution must be conveyed, all support for a realistic and viable Palestinian state that includes Gaza and the West Bank and has its capital in East Jerusalem.”

“In light of the humanitarian catastrophe currently occurring in Gaza and also in the West Bank, where violence is increasing, it is necessary for the political voice of the European Union and all European states to be raised strongly,” he emphasized.

Albares stressed that “50,000 dead Palestinian civilians are more than enough” and that “there can be no attacks against humanitarian actors, against hospitals, against schools, as we saw yesterday in Gaza.”

“All of this must end; the violence of settlers in the West Bank must also end,” he concluded. (April 14)