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Gilad Erdan announces the launch of a new campaign against BDS.
(photo credit: ALEXI ROSENFELD)
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Minister of Strategic Affairs and Public Security Gilad Erdan on Friday sent a letter to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker asking him to end the funding of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who are promoting a boycott against Israel.
The letter also invited Juncker to follow the recommendations issued earlier in the week by the European Court of Auditors, the European Union's auditor, in order to improve transparency and control. European funding for NGOs.
Erdan specifically emphasized the need to monitor NGOs dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The report reveals that the current method of distributing EU aid to NGOs is not reliable and warns that the European Commission does not have sufficient or detailed information on how whose funds transferred to these organizations are used.
Erdan's letter also asked the president to check whether the European funds allocated to these NGOs were used for purposes other than those planned, due to insufficient control, and also asked if they were used to promote the anti-Israel boycott.
"I have no doubt that boycott organizations disguised as human rights organizations are exploiting the European Union and using the funds received to promote the boycott of Israel," said Erdan.
Financing NGOs that encourage the boycott of Israel would be in contradiction with the declared policy of the EU to oppose this kind of boycott, Erdan explained.
In May, Erdan's ministry released a 40-page study accusing the EU institutions of paying € 5 million to non-governmental organizations that promoted the anti-Israel boycott in 2016 and calling for the cessation of this support. The report also revealed that several million additional euros were channeled to NGOs through third parties benefiting from EU aid.
An EU spokesman, however, said the findings of the Erdan report were both "unfounded and factually incorrect".
"None of the 13 organizations listed by Minister Erdan receive any EU funding for BDS activities," the spokesman told The Jerusalem Post. "After the publication of the report" Money Trail ", we invited the authorities to engage in a fruitful dialogue on civil society, as envisaged by the EU-Israel Action Plan, and regretted that unsubstantiated information was published again without prior dialogue and engagement. "
The Court of Auditors' report of 18 December indicated that the EU had distributed around 11.3 billion euros between 2014 and 2017 to NGOs in many EU policy areas. Although it found that the selection of NGO-led projects by the Commission was "generally transparent", the selection processes were not transparent for some of the United Nations agencies audited.
"The commission does not collect and does not always verify complete information on all [the] NGO [it] supported, "says the report. "The information on European funds implemented by NGOs is published in several systems but the information disclosed is limited. We conclude that the commission was not sufficiently transparent as regards the implementation of European funds by NGOs and that more efforts are needed to improve it. "
In response to this report, Erdan said: "I again call on the European Union to immediately stop funding organizations that promote the boycott of Israel, even when specific projects for which the The money is affected are supposed to be "verifiable" and are not directly related to the projects, the promotion of boycotts, the money is fungible and the financing of one aspect of the activities of a BDS organization allows it to invest money. other resources to attack Israel, "continued Erdan.
But with regard to EU funding for NGOs operating in Israel and in territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority, an EU spokesman said in the post that : "Allegations that the EU supports incitement or terror are baseless and unacceptable" and that the ECA report does not have any specific conclusion regarding the funding of Israeli or Palestinian NGOs .
"We strongly oppose any suggestion of EU involvement in supporting terrorism or terrorism. Our commitment to the fight against terrorism has never been stronger and we have always maintained clear positions on terrorist organizations, "the spokesman said. "Weak and unfounded allegations only contribute to misinformation campaigns."
Erdan said that in the coming weeks, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs will submit to the EU a report based on data indicating that there is still a serious lack of control and that millions of euros per year are still being transferred to organizations that promote the boycott of Israel. it has been shown that some of them have links with EU-designated terrorist groups.
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