Diplomats Say EU Knew Palestinians Misappropriated Cash To Finance Terrorism

national | miscellaneous | news report Sunday May 12, 2002 16:08 by Rotterdam NRC Handelsblad

Diplomats Say EU Knew Palestinians Misappropriated Cash To Finance Terrorism Rotterdam NRC Handelsblad (Internet version-WWW) in Dutch 08 May 02 1.EU Provides Further Euro 3.5 Million Humanitarian Aid to Palestinian Territories EUP20020508000238 Brussels Rapid Database WWW-Text English 08 May 02 Unattributed report: "EU Knew That Arafat Misappropriated Cash"] FBIS Translated Text] Brussels, 8 May

The EU has deliberately refrained from monitoring the misappropriation of European money by the Palestinian Authority over the past few years. EU diplomats said this on the occasion of new Israeli accusations published earlier this week in Jerusalem. The EU has deliberately never raised the issue of the diversion of European relief money to finance terrorism and corruption because it feared that this would jeopardize the resumption of the Middle East peace process, according to the diplomats.

One EU diplomat also said that the monitoring of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat's budget by the IMF could not prevent European money from being used for terrorist purposes either. "Everybody has known for quite some time now that money ended up in the wrong hands. Officially, however, they feigned ignorance so as not to jeopardize attempts to revive the peace process. The IMF, too, did not want this to happen," he said.

The Israeli Government says it has evidence that Arafat used EU cash to finance terrorism. Earlier this week, EU Commissioner Chris Patten foreign policy) received the Israeli evidence, which consists of a three-page document. According to Patten's spokesman, the Commission is taking the issue very seriously. However, the Commission's first impression is that the evidence is not conclusive, the spokesman said.

More than one half of all the EU's international aid goes to the Palestinian
Authority. Between 1994 and 2001, the EU gave 1.446 billion euros in aid to the Palestinians, including 256 million euros in loans from the European Investment Bank. The EU member states also supported the Palestinian Authority with 1 billion euros.

Last year, EU Commissioner Patten decided that there was insufficient control on the use of EU funding. Therefore, he decided to call in the IMF so as to regain control over the situation.

[Description of Source: Rotterdam NRC Handelsblad in Dutch (Internet version-WWW) -- prestigious left-of-center newspaper]