MEPs head for budget battle over Kosovo aid

Date: 08/07/1999

By Simon Taylor

THE European Parliament is heading for a major clash with EU governments over how to fund the reconstruction of Kosovo.

Senior MEPs on the Parliament's powerful budgetary committee have vowed to block attempts to raise €500 million for projects in the region by cutting other foreign policy programmes, putting them on a collision course with member states which want to keep a tight rein on Union spending.

Former committee chairman Detlev Samland, who stepped down at last month's Euro-elections, warned this week that the process of reaching an agreement would be difficult and predicted that the new Parlia-ment would "have a big fight with the member states".

The German Socialist's remarks were echoed by British Labour MEP Terry Wynn, who is being tipped to take over as chairman of the committee. "We want to make sure that Kosovo is our main priority without other programmes losing out," he said. "Those who support money going to non-governmental organisations and Latin America are not going to want funds to be cut for those programmes."

But while many MEPs are fiercely opposed to switching spending from other schemes, Union governments are equally adamant that they will hold out against the assembly's demands. "The Parliament has made it into a point of principle to extend the budget ceiling, but the Council of Ministers is prepared to defend its position to the bitter end," said one official.

EU governments have given their unanimous support to proposals to slice 10% off the Union's total scheduled 4.479 billion euro spending on foreign policy projects in 2000 to help pay for reconstruction projects in Kosovo.

But MEPs argue that there is enough flexibility within the seven-year budget deal struck by EU leaders in Berlin in March to cover the cost, and question the need to take the money from next year's budget for cooperation programmes with third countries such as Russia, the other post-Soviet states and Mediterranean countries.

The Parliament made its views on the budget issue clear at a meeting with Finnish Minister Suvi-Anne Siimas in Helsinki last week ahead of next Friday's (16 July) meeting of budget ministers at which the Commission's spending proposals for 2000 will be discussed. The talks will also focus on where to make savings this year to find €150 million in start-up costs for the new reconstruction agency in Kosovo.

Finance ministers from the G7 group of leading industrialised countries will hold a special meeting in Brussels next Tuesday (13 July) to discuss the exact cost of reconstruction in Kosovo. They will prepare the ground for an international donors' conference on 28 July.

The EU estimates the costs of helping refugees and reconstructing Kosovo at around 1 billion euro a year for the next five years.