International donors start a two-day meeting in Brussels on Wednesday to pledge economic aid to the Balkans which they hope will cement regional cooperation and help make the Kosovo conflict the last of its kind.
Donors are expected to offer more than one billion euros ($970 million) for projects stretching from Montenegro to Romania and repeat their message that Serbia could also benefit if it ditches President Slobodan Milosevic.
Many of the planned projects involve improvements to cross-border infrastructure in such domains as rail and road transport and electricity networks.
The Regional Funding Conference organized by the World Bank and European Commission is the first to be held in support of the Stability Pact for south-east Europe set up in the aftermath of NATO's campaign to evict Serb forces from Kosovo.
The heart of the conference is a narrow list of "quick start" projects that need funding to get off the ground, but bigger political questions over the region's future are likely to dominate declarations at the meeting.
"Declining living standards, refugees, border disputes and security concerns in the region are all conspiring to create a cauldron of instability and potential conflict in Europe," the World Bank said in a preparatory report for the meeting.
The report argued successful reform may only be possible if the countries covered by the Stability Pact - Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Yugoslavia, Macedonia and Romania - were offered "a credible and predictable path to integration with European and global structures, particularly the European Union".
European Investment Bank Director for Central and Eastern Europe Walter Cernoia said the EIB would present the conference with a list of infrastructure projects for the coming years.
QUICK START PROJECTS
These included quick start projects - those which can be started within a year - totalling 1.1 billion euros; near-term projects to start within 24 months worth 2.2 billion euros; and a further list of medium-term initiatives on which no figure had been put, he told Reuters.
The EIB had previously said that longer-term rebuilding in the Balkans could cost around nine billion euros. "You can do the sums yourself," Cernoia said.
In a letter to donors last week, the Commission and World Bank said donors still needed to mobilise 400 million euros of the 1.1 billion euros quick start program.
Similarly, the conference would be asked to find 104 million euros for a similar 290 million euros quick start program for the private sector prepared by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The EBRD said on Monday it hoped donors would also provide 128 million euros for projects to be implemented by 2002.
Stability Pact coordinator Bodo Hombach would also seek unspecified support for programs in areas such as education, media support, respect for human rights, justice and home affairs, the letter said.
Support for some projects has already started.
EU candidates Bulgaria and Romania signed on Monday an agreement for a new 190 million euros bridge over the Danube which is expected to get an initial five million euros contribution from the conference.
More sensitively, the donors main website (www.seerecon.org) lists a planned road and port development in Montenegro, which is still formally part of Yugoslavia but which is being rewarded by the West for not bowing to Belgrade.
(C)2000 Copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters Limited.
© 1995-2000 European Internet Network Inc. All rights reserved.
via: http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/