JERUSALEM, Wednesday, September 02, 2020 (WAFA) - The European Union has today provided a contribution of €9 million to the July salaries of health and education workers and the pensions of more than 37,500 Palestinian civil servants in the West Bank, according to an EU press release.

This support will enable the Palestinian Authority to pay Palestinian civil servants notwithstanding the difficult fiscal situation brought about by the COVID-19 crisis and recent political developments, it said, adding that in the context of the Team Europe approach, the EU has frontloaded its financial contribution to support the PA in ensuring the uninterrupted continuation of critical public services.

"This new contribution comes as the Palestinian Authority is struggling to pay salaries and pensions and to maintain the delivery of public services to its people. The fiscal situation of the Palestinian Authority is over-stretched and clearly unsustainable without the acceptance of transfers of the tax revenues collected by Israel. Those revenues are Palestinian and should be transferred and accepted irrespective of political tensions. If no solution can be found the entire system may collapse. Instability or chaos are not in the interest of any side. We need a breakthrough so that hope can be restored and trust be rebuilt," said EU Representative Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff.

M.K.