EU: EU foreign ministers sanctioned a decision to block direct aid for the Palestinian Authority yesterday and severed political contact with the Hamas-led government.
The EU said it was taking the measure to pressure Hamas to recognise Israel and renounce violence, but pledged to continue aid for purely humanitarian projects.
At a meeting in Luxembourg, the EU backed a decision made last week by the European Commission, to announce a temporary halt of payments to the authority.
"Contacts with government members and the Hamas political establishment have to be currently excluded," said Austrian foreign minister Ursula Plassnik, representing the EU presidency. "But contacts at technical or administrative services level where the necessity is unavoidable, can take place," she said.
Ms Plassnik said the direct aid freeze on EU funds was to defend taxpayers' interests by ensuring no money went for violence or terrorism.
Many individual EU states have also moved to halt their own aid programmes to the Palestinian Authority, which are paid out separately to the commission-funded programmes.
However, some portions of aid that are handled by the Palestinian Authority will continue to be paid out, including about €1 million in Irish aid for education projects, the Minister for Foreign affairs Dermot Ahern said yesterday.
The EU is the biggest aid donor to the Palestinian Authority, providing about $600 million (€495 million) a year. Direct aid makes up about half the EU funding for the Palestinian territories. The remainder is given out by agencies such as the UN.
The Hamas-led government, led by prime minister Ismail Haniya, faces a serious financial crisis and the Red Cross warned yesterday of a potential humanitarian and security crisis in the Palestinian territories.
"Humanitarian organisations simply cannot replace the range of services that a public administration has to deal with," said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross. "It's neither our role, nor do we have the range of capacities."
Meanwhile, EU ministers also agreed to ban Belarussian president Alexander Lukashenko and 30 of his top officials from travelling to the EU following presidential elections last month in Belarus that the EU judged were neither "free nor fair".
In a statement, EU foreign ministers said the council deplored that the presidential elections of March 19th were not held in a free and fair manner. It also condemned the violence used by the Belarussian authorities against demonstrators and the arrests made against the demonstrators and members of the opposition parties.
Mr Lukashenko, who was sworn in as president on Saturday, topped the visa-ban list. The head of presidential administration, Gennady Nevyglas, the ministers of education, information and justice, as well as the chairman of the lower house of parliament and the head of the KGB security service were also banned.
The EU did not freeze the assets of the banned individuals. However, it warned that it may do so, possibly as early as next month, and asked the commission to propose further measures.
EU ministers also discussed possible sanctions against Iran for the first time, including possible visa bans and financial sanctions if Tehran presses on with sensitive nuclear activity.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who drafted a confidential options paper for the 25 ministers, and British foreign secretary Jack Straw insisted it was just a contingency-planning exercise and sanctions were not imminent.
The ministers appealed to Iran in a statement to comply with UN calls to suspend all nuclear enrichment-related activities and reaffirmed their support for a diplomatic solution. It made no mention of possible sanctions.
But EU officials said that among steps envisaged in Mr Solana's paper were a travel ban on individuals involved in Iran's nuclear programme, tighter export controls on dual-use technologies, a ban on Iranian students studying sensitive sciences in European universities and, ultimately, a ban on export credit guarantees to companies trading with Iran.