A Palestinian man who was dismissed from his job in Gaza after the war broke out is suing the European Union for allegedly breaching Belgian law.
Mohammed Baraka, who worked at the EU border assistance mission (EUBam) at Rafah after its inception in 2006 as an unarmed civilian third-party presence, has filed his case in a Belgian court.
He had been evacuated to Cairo after the war broke out with the assistance of the EU and continued to work there, as did other colleagues in the West Bank.
But he was dismissed earlier this year after the EU decided to close the office in Rafah due to the war.
In the claim submitted to a Brussels tribunal, his lawyer, Selma Benkhelifa, states that Baraka “does not criticise the decision to close the Rafah office” as “the security situation justifies this”.
However, she states that his EU counterparts, who also worked for EUBam in Rafah, “were not dismissed, they were transferred elsewhere” to continue work, giving alleged grounds for “discrimination on the basis of his nationality.”
The European Commission said it had no comment to make.
The core of his argument rests on the claim that Baraka was employed under Belgian law but the EU had him on a rolling one-year contract, an alleged breach of national laws which state that after three consecutive contracts, workers must be made permanent with the concomitant workers rights.
“A provision that allows an employer to renew fixed-term contracts is contrary to Belgian and European public policy,” the claim says.
The lawsuit adds: “It is shocking to note that a European institution is circumventing public policy provisions intended to protect workers. The applicant’s contract must be reclassified as a permanent contract.”
Baraka said he had “filed this case because of the injustice” he suffered.
“During the first days of the war in Gaza, I was, like all other residents of Gaza, facing an unknown and frightening fate,” he said.
“When I was offered evacuation by the EU to a safe place, as an EU employee who had served for 20 years, I accepted the offer. But had I known that my fate would be dismissal from my job and being left in a place with no residence or basic human rights, I would have never agreed to it. None of this was explained to me beforehand.”
