Chirac calls for summit to focus on conflict

Date: 08/04/1999

By Gareth Harding And Tim Jones

FRENCH President Jacques Chirac has called for next week's EU reform summit to be transformed into a top-level discussion on the Balkan crisis.

The three-hour dinner next Wednesday (14 April), originally called to meet Commission President-designate Romano Prodi, will provide the first forum for Union leaders to discuss the war in Kosovo since the province was “cleansed” of more than 400,000 ethnic Albanians.

” They will try to work out how Europe can help contribute effective aid to refugees and economic aid to neighbouring countries,” said Chirac's spokeswoman Cathérine Colonna. “They need to talk first before they come up with a worthwhile proposal.”

Acting Foreign Affairs Commissioner Hans van den Broek proposed this week that total aid to the region should be increased from the €12 million released so far to €250 million. This was due to be discussed by EU foreign ministers at an emergency meeting in Luxembourg today (8 April).

Macedonian Foreign Minister Aleksandar Dimitrov has said his country alone needs €100 million from the EU and other international bodies to help cope with the influx of refugees. Albania has also appealed for more help from its European neighbours.

Ferit Hoxha, the country's ambassador to the EU, said Albania needed hundreds of millions of euro to assist

the 270,000 Kosovars who have flooded across its borders since the crisis began. Until now, it has received only h10 million from ECHO.

” We have reached saturation point, but still the situation is deteriorating day by day,” he said.

EU justice and home affairs ministers meeting in emergency session yesterday (7 April) rejected any idea of a mass evacuation programme and agreed to care for as many refugees as possible close to their homeland.

The UK and France successfully fought off calls from Germany, Sweden and Denmark for national quotas of Kosovar refugees to be taken in by member states, although some countries did spell out precisely how many expelled ethnic Albanians they were prepared to admit.

Ministers acknowledged the dangers of moving refugees too far way from Kosovo in a statement issued after their meeting.

” The long-term admission of Kosovars to countries outside their region would consolidate their displacement from their homes. It would send the wrong signal to the Serb regime,” they said.