Title: TSUNAMI IMPACT: DISASTER RECOVERY TOPS EMERGENCY SESSION OF EU

, Business CustomWire, Jan 08, 2005

Database: Regional Business News

TSUNAMI IMPACT: DISASTER RECOVERY TOPS EMERGENCY

SESSION OF EU

BRUSSELS, Jan 6, 2005 IPS/GIN, 2005 (IPS/GIN via COMTEX) -Preventive and
reconstruction aid to the Asian countries hit by the tsunami will top
the agenda
at an emergency meeting of EU foreign, health and development
ministers Friday.
Ministers are also expected to approve a higher European Union (EU)
aid package
for reconstruction announced by European Commission president Jos
Manuel Barroso
at an emergency international summit in Jakarta Thursday..
Barroso's commitment takes the Commission's aid commitment to nearly
600 million
dollars, and the combined aid pledges by the EU executive and the
bloc's 25
member states to around 2 billion dollars.
Playing down fears that the tsunami pledges may detract from the EU's
work with
other developing countries, Barroso said the Commission's budget
would have to
be reworked to accommodate the new pledge.
Barroso also proposed a 1.3 billion dollar concessional loan for
reconstruction
through the European Investment Bank (EIB), the EU's financing
institution.
This loan would dedicate a long-term lending facility "on favourable
terms to
help finance the reconstruction efforts," Barroso said. The facility
would be
implemented in close coordination with the European Commission, the
World Bank
and the Asian Development Bank, he said.
Barroso indicated that after the immediate relief effort the final
bill to
rebuild the region could be higher.
"We must ensure that there is a seamless transition from the current

humanitarian support to a second phase of rehabilitation and

reconstruction," he
said. "This work will take several years and we will only know the
final costs
when the needs assessments currently underway are finalised."
Speaking at the same meeting Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude
Juncker,
whose country took over presidency of the EU last week, said the EU
would "do
all it can" to support Asian efforts to set up a regional early
warning system
to detect earthquakes and alert populations to potential tidal waves.
Juncker said the Friday meeting would also be an "opportunity to
address both
immediate relief including supplies and health concerns as well as
longer term
challenges such as prevention, rehabilitation and reconstruction
aspects."
EU ministers are also due to hear reports by Luxembourg minister for
cooperation
and humanitarian action Jean-Louis Schiltz, and EU development and
humanitarian
aid commissioner Louis Michel who have been visiting regions worst
hit by the
tsunami.
The emergency summit will also be attended by senior UN and World
Health
Organisation (WHO) representatives.
The European Parliament stressed Thursday (Jan. 6) that promises of
aid must be
realised in delivery on the ground.
"Alongside looking at how we respond to the immediate humanitarian
needs, we
also need to look further ahead," said president of the European
Parliament
Josep Borrell. "Reconstruction of damaged regions will be a massive
task and we
must also make sure that a human tragedy on this scale can never
happen again."
Borrell said such a commitment would be a "complex task" for the EU,
as well as
for other donors. Any "multi-annual pledge" for the tsunami disaster
from the EU
would involve first finding money from the existing budgets for 20056, he said.
"Furthermore, it will involve trying to ring fence funds from the
overall
budgets for 2007 and beyond," he said. "Joint decisions by

Parliament, the
European Commission and the European Council will be necessary but I
can already
say that the goodwill exists in the Parliament to find a solution
provided that
we do not try to take funds from other important reconstruction work
from which
the media spotlight has already vanished."

Copyright (c) 2005 IPS-Inter Press Service.

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