BRUSSELS REGIONAL FUNDING CONFERENCE STARTS

BRUSSELS, March 29 (Hina) - A two-day Regional Funding Conference, at which international financial institutions and donor-countries will announce their share and forms of financial assistance for priority infrastructure projects and other initiatives of the Stability Pact for South East Europe, opened in Brussels on Wednesday. The first day of the conference, which is organised by the European Commission and the World Bank, will be held at ministerial level and chaired jointly by Chris Patten, Member of the European Commission for international relations, and James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank. #L# Opening the conference, Patten said the European Union was approaching the process of stabilisation of South-East Europe with the same readiness and determination the United States had demonstrated in western Europe after World War II. Patten said the message the conference wanted to relay to the people in the region was not to shirk neighbourhood but transform it into good neighbourly relations. Crisis after crisis is much more expensive than establishing peace, Patten emphasised. He presented data saying that since 1991 the EU has provided eight billion Euros of humanitarian and development aid for South-East European countries, and it plans to provide another 12 billion Euros of medium-term assistance for those countries. Of that amount, the EC has suggested that 5.5 billion Euros be given to the countries of the so-called western Balkans between 2000 and 2006. Patten emphasised that the EU wanted to be the generator of the process of stabilisation in South-East Europe. Also speaking at the opening of the conference were World Bank President Wolfensohn and the Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact, Bodo Hombach. A total of 44 countries and 36 different international organisations and financial institutions are attending the conference. Croatia's delegation at the event is headed by Foreign Minister Tonino Picula. The European Investment Bank (EIB) has assessed a number of offered projects on the construction or reconstruction of infrastructure from Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, and Romania. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia does not meet the political requirements for any kind of financial support. The conference is yet to discuss the modalities of bilateral financial arrangements of Stability Pact donor-countries for Kosovo and Montenegro. The EIB has proposed some of those projects to the conference as priority projects. These will include a "quick-start" package of priority infrastructure projects, which can be implemented immediately, i.e. during the next twelve months, as soon as the adequate funding is secured. The funds required for implementing the priority "quick-start" projects, which have been positively assessed by the EIB, have been estimated at 1.6 to 1.8 billion Euros, EC representatives said. Of that amount, 1.1 billion Euros should be used for the construction of reconstruction of infrastructure facilities (760 million Euros have been promised during preparations for the conference), and 290 million have been promised as support for the development of the private sector (186 million have been secured during the preparations). Ahead of the start of the Brussels conference, it was unofficially confirmed that among projects from Croatia, a 23-km-long section of the Zagreb-Varazdin highway (Breznicki Hum-Varazdin) stands the best chance of winning the necessary financial assistance. As part of the pan-European B5 corridor (Rijeka-Zagreb-Budapest), this section meets the conference's criteria for the funding of "quick-start" projects. The EIB has also envisaged in its proposals the funding of several other smaller "quick-start" projects in Croatia. However, these data are unofficial and should be known only at the end of the conference. Infrastructure project of regional character will be given priority, it was said at the opening of the meeting, whose organisers did not want to give any details in advance regarding the projects which have proposed for funding. They said the projects would be announced upon the completion of the second day of the conference, on Thursday, when donor-countries and financial institutions should make specific pledges to the regional projects and initiatives presented on the second day of the conference. Apart from the funding of infrastructure projects, and within the Stability Pact's Working Table II (economy and reconstruction), also proposed to the Brussels conference have been projects on consulting and other support for stimulating private foreign investments, the private sector, and small- and medium-sized businesses in the region. Those projects were assessed and proposed as priority issues by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The conference has also been offered projects for the financing of various initiatives from the areas of the Stability Pact's Working Table I (democratisation and human rights) and Working Table III (security issues). (hina) mm rml