During the 38th federal party congress in Stuttgart yesterday, Friedrich Merz’s CDU, Germany’s largest party, unanimously approved a motion calling for stricter criteria for aid payments to Palestinians and an end to German and European subsidies to UNRWA.
Motion M06 was brought by the CDU district association Brussels-Belgium.
It was titled: “Future Funding to the Palestinian Authority Only Upon Fulfillment of Conditions – Palestinian Refugee Assistance in the Future Through UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) Instead of UNRWA.”
The first part of the motion states that future payments to the Palestinian Authority shall only be made if the conditions set by the EU and Germany are actually fulfilled.
The condition is that a post-war Palestine must implement democratic, rule-of-law-based, and peaceful structures that reject violence as a political means and enable peaceful coexistence with Israel.
Until proof of compliance with these conditions is provided, the motion says all payments intended for the Palestinian Authority shall be frozen. If, after payments are resumed, the PA violates the terms again, the payments shall once more be automatically frozen.
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This part of the motion was put in place in order not to contribute to the PA’s payments to families of terrorists (“pay to slay”) and also to ensure that no schoolbooks financed from the PA’s budget contain antisemitic or anti-Israeli incitement, which the European Parliament has previously called for.
Furthermore, the European Commission has confirmed that the PA continues to make payments to families of terrorists, which violates German and European budgetary regulations stipulating that no funds may be used for terrorist purposes.
Part two of the motion mandates that all humanitarian and other assistance for the Palestinian territories, as well as for Palestinian refugees in the region, shall in the future be administered through the UNHCR and not through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Germany and the European Union shall cease all support for UNRWA.
“In the rest of the world, UNHCR is responsible for refugees, and it is not apparent why this should be different for Palestinian refugees,” the motion reads.
It added that unlike the globally applicable UNHCR definition of refugees, refugee status under UNRWA is inheritable, an arrangement that hampers the integration of Palestinian refugees into their respective host countries and complicates a reconciliatory resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“UNHCR should therefore assume responsibility in the future for Palestinian refugee assistance on the basis of the globally applicable refugee definition. Investigations following October 7, 2023, have also confirmed close links between UNRWA and terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah,” it said.
Finally, the third part of the motion requires any recipients of funds from the EU budget or the German federal budget that implement measures or projects in the Palestinian territories to commit to recognizing Israel’s right to exist and adhering to Germany’s zero-tolerance policy toward antisemitism.
This explicitly includes public statements made by their employees, whether in public appearances or on social media.
The working definition of antisemitism recognized by the Federal Government as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition, including its examples, shall be authoritative.
Furthermore, recipients must commit to fully applying UNESCO educational standards for peace, tolerance, coexistence, and non-violence. Regular external evaluations shall be conducted to verify compliance.
In the event of violations, further payments shall be frozen immediately.
Now that the CDU has adopted M06, it formally commits the party to conditioning aid to the PA, ending support for UNRWA in favor of UNHCR, and imposing strict anti-antisemitism compliance rules on funding recipients, thereby establishing this as its official political stance.
Given that the CDU is the largest party in the Bundestag, it could directly shape federal policy.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called the adoption of the motion “an act of moral clarity.” He praised the end of funding of UNRWA in favor of alternative ways to provide assistance to Gaza, “that have not been infiltrated by Hamas terrorists.”
“I commend this act of CDU and call on the German government to implement these steps,” he concluded.