By Ingrid Melander BRUSSELS, Feb 25 (Reuters) - The European Union's external relations commissioner will seek in a four-day trip to the Middle East to encourage the formation of an internationally acceptable Palestinian government with the prospect of new aid. The bloc plans to expand aid to a current temporary mechanism to needy Palestinians, and is considering new channels to help some Palestinian institutions and the economy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner said on Sunday. These programmes could get underway before the EU decides whether or not to provide direct aid to the unity government being formed by President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction and ruling Hamas Islamists, she said in a phone interview. "We have to address the challenges in two time frames," Ferrero-Waldner said before flying on Sunday to the region, where she will visit Cairo, Jerusalem, the Palestinian territories and Amman. "One, new actions that can be taken soon, even before the establishment of a national unity government with which we can re-engage...And secondly, actions that could be taken once the political conditions allow us to re-engage with the Palestinian Authority," she said.In order for the EU to reengage, Ferrero-Waldner called on the new Palestinian government to respond to the conditions set out by the Quartet of Middle East mediators: recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept past agreements. Western powers cut off aid to the Palestinian authority after Hamas won elections in January last year. DIRECT AID Ferrero-Waldner said the EU would meanwhile continue funding a Temporay International Mechanism set up by the international community to aid needy Palestinians while bypassing Hamas.She did not give a total figure for 2007 but said 35 million euros were in the pipeline, and that it would be an expanded version of what the EU had done so far. The EU gave some 700 million euros to the Palestinian people last year, she said. Ferrero-Waldner said possible new channels of aid included improving the Karni commercial crossing between Gaza and Israel, and helping the Palestinian judiciary and electoral commission -- the judiciary and the commission are not controlled by the Hamas-led government and are exempt from the existing sanctions.Ferrero-Waldner explicitly held out the prospect of a resumption of direct aid if a new administration reflected the principles of the Quartet. "When it becomes possible to re-engage with the national unity government, then I think we could gradually resume the support to the Palestinian authority ministries and agencies."A unity government deal, signed earlier this month by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, contains a vague promise to "respect" Israeli-Palestinian pacts. But it does not commit to abide by those pacts, nor to recognise Israel and renounce violence. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told Abbas over the weekend that Paris would be "disposed to co-operate" with the planned unity government, bucking U.S. efforts to maintain the boycott. But he did not say what that would entail.
