European Union money for the Palestinian Authority includes of millions of dollars for salaries civil servants who don’t show up for work, according to  the European Court of Auditors (ECA)., the Luxembourg-based body which describes itself as the ‘’Guardians of EU finances.”

The amount of EU funding to the Palestinian Authority between 2008 and 2012 reached more than $1.5 billion. The ECA called for an “overhaul” of “a number of aspects of the current approach,” but the official Palestinian Authority WAFA site somehow concluded that the report cleared the Palestinian Authority of corruption.

“A considerable number of civil servants in Gaza are being paid without going to work and providing a public service,” said EU Auditor Hans Gustaf Wessberg. Spot checks of 10 civil servants revealed that four were not working and at on office, only 35 of 125 employees were working.

He denied reports that the EU is funding salaries of Palestinian Authority terrorists who are in Israeli jails. ‘’No EU money goes to anybody suspected of terrorism,’’ Wessberg said, but it is a matter of how one looks at the overall picture. Obviously, EU funds for other  outlays free money for paying terrorists.

European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton’s attempt to ban funding of projects in Judea and Samaria, the Golan Height and areas of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinian Authority is being challenged by 27 Members of the EU Parliament.

Aston’s guidelines are to go into effect January I, but Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has threatened to pull Israel out of the seven-year  EU Horizon 2020 project to which Israel is committed to contribute approximately $800 million.

In a letter addressed to Ashton, the MEPs, from across the political spectrum, urged the EU Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to reverse or at least soften the guidelines, the European Jewish Press reported.

Israel has taken part in EU research and development programs since 1996, including over the last seven years in which 1,584 Israeli researchers took part in more than 1,300 projects and received a total of more than $800 million in grant money.

The European Union is quietly trying to climb down from a weak limb it stood in July with a statement but Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton “that bilateral agreements with Israel do not cover the territory that came under Israel’s administration in June 1967.”

The Israeli government reacted strongly, and even President Shimon Peres objected to the policy. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called Ashton’s bluff by saying that Israel would not participate in the Horizon 2020 program if she did not back down.

Since then, the EU has been excelling in acrobatics saying it really did not mean what it said. A high-level delegation from the European Union is in Israel this week to come up with a clever way to correct its “settlement guidelines” in a way that will not make it look ‘pro-settlement.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin warned that if there is no deal, the Horizon 2020 program, which gets underway this Friday, would lose out on Israel’s contribution of technology and know-how while Israel would lose funding for projects. ”As it stands, we cannot sign Horizon 2020. It would force us to discriminate against our own institutions,” Elkin said.

The European Union has donated tents to dozens of Arabs in Area “C” in the southern Hevron Hills to help them dig in for the winter in their attempt to create “facts on the ground” and take over the region that officially is under Israeli control as agreed in the Oslo Accords.

The Arabs, most of them squatters on acreage that was state land during the Jordanian occupation from 1949 until 1967, have used the tents for livestock and not just for families. The EU has donated tens of millions of dollars in recent years to move Arabs from the Hevron area into more remote areas of Area C to increase the Arab population.

Many of the Arabs go back to their former homes in the winter, but the sudden presence of the tents indicates that the EU wants to make their presence permanent.

The campaign has been accompanied by reports by Palestinian Authority media of alleged attacks on Arabs by Jewish residents in the area.

During a press conference with President Shimon Peres on Thursday, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte unequivocally stated that products made over the 1967 Green Line, will continue to be labeled “Made in Israel” in the Netherlands, according to a report in JPost.com.

The Dutch position is unlike that of the Germans, who definitely plan to demarcate and label Jewish products differently.

The Germans plan to label product made over the Green Line, the Golan Heights and even parts of Jerusalem, as not made in Israel. The Germans have a lot of experience in separating and marking Jews and Jewish products differently.

It has been pointed out that while the EU is being a stickler on products from Israel, it is not demanding the same for products from other disputed areas around the world. Double standards like that meet the definition of Antisemitism.

The European Union Wednesday decided to suspend export licenses to Egypt for equipment that could be used for “internal repression” in the wake of the massive violence and increasing instability in the country.

European Union Foreign Ministers also agreed to review security assistance to the military regime that has ruled Egypt since the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi last month.

European Union countries give Egypt more than $7 billion a year in financial aid, which so far has not been cut or suspended.

The ministers condemned the violent suppression, which they said is “’disproportionate” and which has “resulted in an unacceptable large number of deaths and injuries.”

The EU censured ”acts of terrorism such as the murder of Egyptian policemen in the Sinai, the destruction of many churches and the targeting of the Coptic community, attacks on government installations and museums.”

Mohammed Morsi is alive and well, said European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton after a visit to the secret location where he is being held by the Egyptian military.

She was the first person to officially visit Morsi since the army put him under house arrest four weeks ago in the “coup” that the military regime denies is a coup.

Ashton said, “Morsi is well. He has access to information in terms of TV, newspapers, so we were able to talk about the situation and we were able to talk about the need to move forward. We had a friendly, open and very frank discussion.”

The EU official is trying to come up with a political solution to the crisis in Egypt following the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood president, who was elected a year ago.

Croatia has outlawed hate crime, enabling it to become the 18th member of the European Union, the European Jewish Press reported.

The new law in Croatia promises “to protect those who may still be subjected to threats or acts of discrimination, hostility or violence,” makes it a crime to violate “public peace and order based on racial, ethnic, religious and other grounds.”

The pre-Holocaust Jewish community of Croatia numbered approximately 24,000 before a pro-Nazi government in 1941 began persecuting Jews, eventually deporting and exterminating approximately 78 percent of the Jewish community. After the war, almost half of the 2,500 remaining Jews in Croatia moved to Israel after 1948.

Croatian President Ivo Josipovic earlier this year made a public apology to his country’s Holocaust victims in an address to the Knesset on an official visit to the Jewish State. “We need to look into our hearts, and to come to terms with the darkest stain in our history,” he said. “We must look in our hearts, at the darkest stain in our history. We must know: The snake is weak, but it is still there.”