Disaster Recovery Tops Emergency Session
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Transcript of Disaster Recovery Tops Emergency Session
Title: TSUNAMI IMPACT: DISASTER RECOVERY TOPS EMERGENCY SESSION OF EU , Business CustomWire, Jan 08, 2005
Title: TSUNAMI IMPACT: DISASTER RECOVERY TOPS EMERGENCY SESSION OF EU , Business CustomWire, Jan 08, 2005Database: 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 2005-6, 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. All Rights Reserved.
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