PA Seeking to Alter Economic Paris Agreements with Israel

By: Baruch Yedid

“We intend to make a series of amendments to the Paris agreements, including the issue of customs,” a senior Palestinian Authority (PA) official who was a member of the negotiating team drafting the Paris agreements told TPS.

According to him, the PA intends to make amendments to the customs and tax arrangements, re-edit the import and export quotas and bring about a different method of collecting the taxes that Israel collects on behalf of the PA.

The 1994 Paris Accords dictate the economic relations between Israel and the PA.

The senior official says that “since the signing of the eight economic agreements known as the Paris Agreements, as an annex to the Oslo Accords in 1994, there have been severe restrictions on the Palestinian economy and the need to update the agreements time and time again to encourage the PA’s economy.”

In addition, the fact that the joint economic committee for Israel and the PA has not been operating regularly for years also raises the need to amend the agreements.

He further says that the PA is working with European countries to ensure that Israel stops deducting from the tax money it collects for the Palestinians and to correct the rate of fees charged by Israel for collecting the tax money in its territories.

There are fears in the PA that the opening of the agreements will lead Israel to a series of counter-measures that will stifle the PA’s economy, and it should be noted that Israel sees the Paris Protocols as a condition for allowing Palestinian workers to continue working in its territory.

The Paris Protocols was supposed to be valid for five years, but it is still valid today, 25 years after its signing.

The protocol stated that the New Shekel is the legal currency in the PA and the only means of payment and that the PA is not allowed to establish an independent currency.

The agreements also stipulate restrictions on goods that are under Israeli supervision and that Palestinian trade takes place through Israeli seaports, Israeli airports, or border crossings between the PA and Jordan and Egypt.

In this context, it should be noted that the recent PA governments have worked for economic disengagement from Israel and, among other things, have examined the establishment of an independent Palestinian currency, the import of fuels from Iraq to the port of Aqaba in Jordan and other economic agreements.

(TPS)