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."

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