Diplomat makes plea for refugees

Date: 12/06/03

A TOP UN diplomat has appealed for a renewed EU effort to help refugees uprooted during the violence which erupted in Kosovo in 1999 return home.

Michael Steiner, head of the UN's administration in Kosovo, said that 1,000 displaced people have gone back to Kosovo this year and more are expected. "Returns cost money and the EU must deliver on its promises of funds," he told the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee on Tuesday (10 June).

Steiner said he will be leading a multi-ethnic delegation from Kosovo to the Thessaloniki summit on 20-21 June, where the question of western Balkan countries eventually joining the EU will be a major topic.

Boosting job creation in Kosovo is in the EU's own interest, he affirmed. "It will be a problem for the European Union if young people without any prospects at all leave Kosovo and seek employment in the EU. Kosovo has a 57 unemployment rate. Anywhere this would be a recipe for crime and hopelessness."

Although Steiner argued the "time is not yet ripe to discuss the final status of Kosovo", a Yugoslav province until the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, the elected Kosovar President Ibrahim Rugova urged that an international conference should be organized on this matter.

The European Commission has allocated some €53 million to Kosovo this year.

A UN diplomat has called on the EU to increase its efforts to help Kosovo refugees return home.