19 June 2006 - Green Party Euro-MP Caroline Lucas has condemned an EU ‘emergency aid package’ to Palestine as ‘too little, too late’.

The European Commission is discussing the details of a £70m ‘aid package’ with Palestinian and Israeli officials today after receiving the backing of the other so-called ‘quartet’ members – Russia, the US and the UN - over the weekend.

The deal is supposed to relieve hardship suffered since the EU halted regular financial assistance payment after the election of a Hamas-led government in January.

But no cash will change hands for at least a month, and none will be used to pay the public sector workers – teachers, nurses and doctors – in the front-line of the fight against an unfolding humanitarian crisis.

Dr Lucas, Green Party Principal Speaker and a member of the EU’s permanent delegation to the occupied Palestinian Territories , said: “This package is simply not up to the job: it is too little, too late.

“Palestinian civilians are dying daily due to a lack of medicines – and doctors to administer them. The EU must urgently resume full assistance payments – with no strings attached – or face the fact that its decisions leave us with Palestinian blood on all of our hands.”

Dr Lucas, a former EU election monitor in the West Bank , added: “We have been demanding Palestinian democracy as a pre-condition for peace for years. Now the Palestinian people have delivered, and voted for a Hamas government in a free and fair election, it is completely unacceptable for the EU to precipitate a humanitarian crisis in the occupied territories simply because it doesn’t like the result.

“ The EU’s refusal to acknowledge and accept the results of a democratic election is a completely unacceptable act of collective punishment against the Palestinian people.”

 
ENDS