Commission to announce Iraq recovery funds

By David Cronin

Date: 03/06/04

FUNDS worth around €200 million per year should be allocated to help Iraq recover from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and the turmoil sparked by the US-led military invasion, the European Commission is expected to recommend next week.

In a 'medium-term' strategy for Iraq - likely to be adopted on Wednesday (9 June) - the Commission also examines a possible role in supervizing the elections due to be held in the war-torn country by the end of January next year.

"What we are looking at is how we can make a concrete contribution to the normalization of Iraq," said a Commission official.

The €200 million figure corresponds to the amount the Commission allocated for Iraq's reconstruction in 2003-04.

Yet its operations in the country have been severely hampered by the explosive security situation. The Commission had appointed a representative to Baghdad - Scotsman Bernard Savage - last year, yet following a deadly attack on the UN's headquarters in the capital last August, it was decided it was unsafe to have him based there. Savage currently heads the Commission's office to Saudi Arabia, while a team from the EU humanitarian agency ECHO which had previously been stationed in Baghdad is now operating out of Amman, Jordan.

The strategy raises the prospect too that the EU could have similar relations with a post-election Iraq as it has with other Gulf states. A cooperation accord between the Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council - set up by Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in 1981 - was signed in 1989. Since then both sides have discussed the possibility of setting up a free trade area.

Ireland's EU presidency is hoping that it can establish common ground between all 25 member states when Iraq is considered at the 17-18 June summit in Brussels.

Yet differences remained pronounced this week, with Berlin and Paris claiming a draft UN Security Council resolution - supported by the US and the UK - does not go far enough in granting Iraqis power over their own affairs.

The resolution is designed to give the new interim government, unveiled by UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Tuesday (1 June) and due to take power at the end of this month, control over the national security forces.