European Union biggest external provider of financial support to Palestinian territories
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00:00 For more on the story, I'm joined by our business editor Charles-Pierre Legrand.
00:03 First of all, we're talking about this aid, this European aid to the Palestinians.
00:08 What exactly are we talking about?
00:10 Let's actually go back to that statement issued by the European Commission after that first
00:14 statement by the European Commissioner who said that they were going to suspend all aid
00:19 to Palestinians.
00:21 That statement actually said that the review of financial assistance to Palestine does
00:26 not concern humanitarian assistance.
00:29 So for instance, providing for vulnerable families that are subject to shocks or emergencies
00:34 and suddenly have to have health care, food or even cash allowances.
00:39 What does concern is what we're seeing up on the screen here, which is development finance
00:47 on one hand, but also before that, financial support to Palestinian authorities' budget.
00:53 So in 2022 last year, that was worth about 145 million euros, and that 145 million euros
01:02 included 55 million euros for salaries and pensions in the West Bank, essentially not
01:09 for Gaza, so for the Palestinian authorities there, for the government workers there.
01:13 Thirteen million euros to help with health care referrals for East Jerusalem hospitals.
01:20 Fifty million euros to supplement the income of the most vulnerable households in that
01:26 area.
01:27 And also because it's 2022, there was 20 million euros there to help the Palestinian
01:30 authority by COVID vaccine.
01:33 So that's the direct financial support that you provided to Palestinians in 2022.
01:40 And this happened in tandem with a continued dialogue with Palestinian authorities that
01:45 was meant to encourage reform and especially with regards to transparency and accountability
01:50 of the leadership in the West Bank.
01:54 The funding also concerns, and this is where we're getting to this graphic here, development
01:59 programs with the goal of creating more jobs, of improving access to water and energy, and
02:06 supporting cooperation initiatives between Israel and Palestine.
02:11 To give you an idea of job creation, for example, in December 2020 there was a creation of a
02:17 European Union Palestine investment platform that helped attract investment towards the
02:23 Palestinian territories.
02:25 The EU on its website says that it managed to attract 400 million euros in what they
02:29 call soft loans, so loans with small interest rates and investments.
02:36 And in terms of development programs, in terms of infrastructure, that can mean desalination
02:41 projects to help make water more fit for human consumption or improving energy consumption
02:48 provision.
02:49 And that actually also includes projects in Gaza, which obviously has been very badly
02:53 affected by this poor infrastructure, especially since the blockade.
02:58 We're looking at this graphic here, which I mentioned earlier on, with the breakdown
03:03 of some of the major contributions from Europe to the Palestinian territories.
03:08 That falls outside that parameter of humanitarian assistance, which is more direct financial
03:14 support to the Palestinian authorities.
03:16 I won't go over it again, but a huge chunk to support the salaries and the pensions of
03:22 government workers in the West Bank, and also a huge chunk just for really poverty alleviation
03:28 or helping the most vulnerable families deal with having very low incomes.
03:34 Now listening to what you're saying and seeing the numbers and what it's going to, it really
03:40 seems like this is a huge lifeline for the Palestinians.
03:45 How much of a role does this European aid play in helping really the Palestinians stay
03:52 afloat, if you will?
03:54 It's a really important - plays a really important part.
03:58 I mean, the EU is the biggest provider of external assistance to the Palestinian territories.
04:06 This obviously - including the humanitarian aid, which is not, at least according to the
04:10 last European Commission statement, going to be under review, but still worth mentioning.
04:16 And all these other initiatives that we talked about are very important.
04:21 I mean, the goal here is for Europe to provide crucial aid since Gaza has been under a blockade
04:30 since 2007, with devastating consequences.
04:34 It's worth going over some of the major stats about the situation there in Gaza.
04:41 The per capita income is about a quarter of what it is in the West Bank.
04:44 That was the case in 2022, according to the International Monetary Fund.
04:49 And there in the first quarter of 2022 was around 46.6 percent, and even higher when
04:55 you look at youth unemployment, over 62 percent.
04:59 And there's all the decaying infrastructure because of that blockade that's been in place
05:05 since 2007 that Israel says obviously is put in place in order to stop arms and other dangerous
05:14 materials from getting into Gaza that could be a threat to Israel's existence.
05:18 But this translates in the daily life of Gaza into rolling power cuts on average of about
05:24 11 hours per day.
05:27 It also means like 78 percent of water in Gaza is unfit for human consumption.
05:33 So those development programs that are funded by the EU are very difficult to implement.
05:42 There's no sense of when these things will be completed, but they were at least something
05:45 to look forward to improving perhaps the situation for ordinary Gazans every day.
05:52 I'm going to keep you on for a little bit longer because we're waiting for the EU foreign
05:57 policy chief, Joseph Borrell, to actually speak after this sort of back and forth about
06:03 the aid, saying first they're going to suspend it, then not saying that they're going to
06:07 suspend it.
06:09 And as we're waiting for him to speak, even if this is a little bit looking forward and
06:17 sort of trying to figure out what will happen, how much of a blow would it be if even some
06:24 European nations were to say we don't want to keep sending that aid to the Palestinians?
06:31 Well, some might argue that even the appearance of fissures within the European bloc, even
06:36 the fact that the Hungarian commissioner for European neighbourhood, the one who announced
06:41 that the immediate suspension of payments and of EU funding to Palestine last night,
06:49 that even the appearance of division is already hurting the prospects of aid to the Palestinian
06:58 territories.
07:00 Moving forward, it's hard to see where this is going to go.
07:07 But within the European bloc, we've already seen Spain, France say that they support not
07:14 suspending payments to Palestine, not just humanitarian aid, but development payments
07:21 and development aid to the Palestinian territories.
07:24 But we've also heard Denmark say that this needs to be suspended for now in order to
07:29 be completely reconsidered and to see whether the big thing here is the argument made by
07:35 those who are against continuing this form of external financing, is to make sure that
07:42 all of this financing actually goes towards its intended goal, which is to help the lives
07:45 of ordinary Palestinians, whether in the West Bank or Gaza, and not in any way, shape or
07:52 form help the efforts of a militant group like Hamas that has it in its sort of DNA
08:01 to try and have an armed struggle against Israel.