EU puts a patch on Israeli cut-off of Palestinian Authority resources: 25 million to guarantee salaries and pensions

Brussels – The European Commission has announced the disbursement of €25 million in assistance to the Palestinian National Authority, the second tranche of the €118.4 million package adopted by Brussels in December 2023. At the same time, it also greenlighted 16 million euros for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which has been completely rehabilitated by the EU after Israeli accusations—hitherto unproven—of complicity with Hamas.

While the Gaza Strip is now completely reduced to rubble, the territory ruled by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is a ticking time bomb, squeezed between escalating attacks by Israeli settlers and a lack of funds to run a semblance of a state machine. Tel Aviv is blocking the tax revenues it collects for the PNA, without which salaries, pensions, social allowances for vulnerable families, and medical benefits cannot be paid. In this sense, the 25 million mobilized by the EU is a godsend to support the administrative and technical capacity of the Palestinian Authority institutions. The first tranche of the same amount had been disbursed in March.

As for UNRWA, the reestablished trust between Brussels and the Palestinian Refugee Agency marks a further rift with Israel, whose Parliament a few days ago gave preliminary approval to a bill designating UNRWA as a terrorist organization. “In light of the progress made by the Agency with respect to the conditions and measures agreed” with Brussels to ensure its impartiality, the Commission has given the go-ahead for the second tranche of €16 million, following the first funding of €50 million released as early as March 1.

The UN agency unveiled an action plan to implement the recommendations formulated in mid-April by the independent review panel led by former French minister Catherine Colonna, which convinced all member states to also unblock their national funding, which is critical to keeping it alive and ensuring assistance to the more than 6 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the occupied territories of the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.

The European Commission said in a note that the third and final annual tranche of €16 million “will be subject to the implementation of the agreement with UNRWA and the Agency’s compliance with agreed conditions and measures.”