BRUSSELS, Tuesday, April 12, 2022 (WAFA) – Fifteen European Union (EU) countries have called on the European Commission (EC) to disburse without delay funding for the Palestinian Authority (PA), according to Politico news outlet.
It said several EU countries, led by Ireland, are growing increasingly impatient with the EC’s delay in signing off funding for Palestine and are calling on the Commission to disburse the money “without delay.”
According to Politico, the EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi has been conditioning the disbursement of EU funds to the PA on changing the Palestinian school textbooks to make them in line with Israeli conditions.
The signatories - Ireland, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden – said in the letter sent to Várhelyi that conditioning aid to the PA on changing the school textbooks “could damage our on-going dialogue with the Palestinians on this and other issues.”
Pro-Israel groups in the European Parliament have been leading efforts to block EU aid to the PA until the latter changes the school textbooks and removes all references to the Palestinian history and struggle against the Israeli occupation until independence.
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