Cypriot AKEL MEP Neoklis Sylikiotis has denounced a US decision to end funding for the UN’s agency for Palestinian Refugees and warned of the adverse impact this will have.
 
“There are five million refugees who are now suffering because of the US cuts. Eighty per cent of the people of Gaza depend entirely on UNRWA support,” the GUE/NGL MEP and chair of Parliament’s Palestine delegation said.
 
He was speaking during a debate in the European Parliament which condemned decision taken by the US on August 31 as “irredeemably flawed”.
 
European Commissioner Johannes Hahn said: “Without UNRWA and the prospect of a two-state solution, there would just be chaos and violence for both the Israeli and Palestinian people.”

Established in 1949 to take care of Palestinians displaced by the Arab-Israeli war, UNRWA provides essential services for some five million Palestine refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

EPP member José Ignacio Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra said: “This is affecting more than 5.5 million men, women and children whom we can’t simply ignore.”

During the plenary debate, Commissioner Hahn said the EU would continue to be “strong, reliable and predictable supporters of the agency”.  He referred to the €40 million in additional EU funding for Unrwa announced at the UN general assembly on September 27.
 
The EU and its member states already provide almost half of the agency’s budget and the overall EU contribution amounts to some €1.2 billion over the past three years.
 
In his address, Sylikiotis said that the US decision came on the back of a series of incendiary actions by the Trump government, culminating in the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
 
He said the ulterior aim is to derail efforts for a two state solution and to abolish the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their own independent state.
 
He urged the EU and member states to take the initiative to mobilise additional funding for UNRWA so that it can continue its work.
 
And he said the EU has an obligation to exert pressure on Israel to end its settlement policy and its inhuman blockade of Gaza.
 
ALDE MEP Hilde Vautmans asked whether Donald Trump would “go down in history as the one who buried the two-state solution” and said that “it is central for the future of the Palestinian state that we continue to support UNRWA”.

S&D member Elena Valenciano said that the US decision would end up creating more hatred and more disaffection: “It’s trying to make a two-state solution impossible and ensure that young Palestinians feel more and more abandoned.”

Rosa D’Amato (EFDD) said: “There has been European support to four generations of Palestinian refugees. In UNRWA’s governance there surely is room for improvement, but I think the US cuts are anything but productive in terms of peace in the Middle East.”

On behalf of the Greens/EFA, Margrete Auken spoke of UNRWA’s “fantastic work”. Referring to “Israel’s systematic challenging of international law”, the vice-chair of Parliament’s Palestine delegation asked: “What is the EU’s response? Some worried mumblings and a few extra euro.”

ECR member Bas Belder, vice-chair of Parliament’s Israel delegation, was of the view, however, that the US decision gives “the international community a major opportunity to change and introduce new rational criteria for Palestinian refugees”. He spoke of UNRWA’s “major deficits” and urged the EU to “support Washington in its wake-up call to the Palestinian leadership”.

German ENF MEP Marcus Pretzell said: “It’s an absolute scandal that the German government has offered to replace a large part of the US funding to UNRWA. We should be closing this institution and cancelling all of its resources.”

In a resolution adopted by MEPs on 8 February 2018, Parliament applauded UNRWA for its “extraordinary efforts” and expressed concern that any reduction or delays in funding could result in “damaging impacts on access to emergency food assistance for 1.7 million Palestine refugees and primary healthcare for three million, and on access to education for more than 500,000 Palestinian children”.