MEPs vow to stand firm in fight over aid cuts to fund Kosovo

Date: 22/07/1999

By Gareth Harding

MEPS are up in arms over EU governments' plans to slash next year's Union aid budget by almost 20% to pay for the reconstruction of Kosovo.

"It is absolutely unacceptable that money should be taken away from the poorest countries in the world to pay for the crisis in Kosovo," said British Labour MEP Glenys Kinnock, a prominent member of the European Parliament's development committee.

Kinnock said that humanitarian aid was already at its lowest point ever and insisted that the EU assembly would stand firm against any attempts to whittle it down even further. "The principle is a completely wrong one. If they can find money for Kosovo, they can find it for Sierra Leone and other countries of Central Africa which have crises of catastrophic proportions," she added.

EU governments and members of the Parliament's budget committee clashed over the issue at a meeting late last week.

Presenting their proposals for EU spending in 2000, junior finance ministers said they wanted to fund the €500 for rebuilding Kosovo from the allocations for external actions in the Union's draft €92-billion budget.

But MEPs have vowed to fight the move,arguing that this would require across-the-board cuts of 10% in EU funding for Mediterranean and eastern European countries and a 19% reduction in humanitarian aid.

Detlev Samland, outgoing chairman of the budget committee, said the Council of Ministers would face a fierce battle if it tried to push through its plans. As the Parliament has joint say with governments in deciding how EU money is spent, the Council cannot simply ignore the assembly's threat.

MEPs argue that there is enough flexibility within the seven-year budget deal struck in Berlin in March to pay for the cost of the reconstruction effort in Kosovo.

The outgoing European Commission indicated earlier this week that it was prepared to support the assembly's fight to raise the ceiling for next year's budget. But governments are adamant that spending in 2000 should be pared back. In the draft budget endorsed by junior finance ministers at their meeting last week, the Council lopped €2 billion off the payment appropriations proposed by the Commission.

The Parliament and the Council also clashed over the proposed location of the new Balkans reconstruction agency after ministers suggested that it might be sited in Thessaloniki, Greece, rather than in Kosovo or Macedonia.

"We will not finance anything if it goes to Thessaloniki," said Samland "It costs three times more than doing it locally in Kosovo. It is absolutely nonsense to go hundreds of kilometres away."

It remains to be seen whether the compromise deal struck by foreign ministers this week, under which the agency would have offices in both Thessaloniki and Pristina, will be enough to satisfy MEPs.

Another area where problems are likely when Parliament holds its first reading on the draft budget in October is the €123 million earmarked for a proposed fisheries deal between the EU and Morocco. "It is not a good idea to put down money for an agreement which has yet to be negotiated," said British Conservative MEP James Elles, the Christian Democrats' spokesman on the budget.