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EU approves $ 4b in aid for nations of ex-Yugoslavia

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November 21, 2000 

BRUSSELS-- (AP) - The European Union approved an economic aid package of dlrs 4 billion Monday for Albania and countries of the former Yugoslavia - nations the EU ignored during the Balkan wars of the 1990s when it opened its doors to other eastern neighbors.

Worth 4.65 billion euros, the package was approved by the EU foreign ministers who will accompany their government leaders to Zagreb, Croatia, for a summit Friday. Officials have been invited to come from Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro as well as Albania and Kosovo.

The aid package is for the 2000-2006 period.

The total was well below the 5.5 billion euros (dlrs dlrs 4.7 billion) the EU executive Commission had proposed because Spain, France and Portugal did not want Balkan aid eat into a similar size EU aid program for Mediterranean nations.

The EU has granted the countries of the former Yugoslavia preferential trade conditions and so-called Stabilization and Association Agreements.

The accords open up a political dialogue and economic cooperation if recipient nations give economic and political reforms high priority, work toward more regional economic integration and help bring war crimes suspects before the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

The accords offer a perspective of EU membership in a bid to encourage countries in the southwestern Balkans to quickly become fully democratic market economies.

The EU will sign such an accord on Wednesday with Macedonia after a year of negotiations.

Talks will open Thursday with Croatia, which voted in a democratic, pro-Western leadership in January, one month after the death ex-president Franjo Tudjman. It is unclear when talks can open with Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina or Serbia, officials said.

The summit will be another opportunity for Serbia's new leader, Vojislav Kostunica - who has pledged to carry out democratic reforms - to endear himself to the leaders of the 15 EU nations. He first met with them at a summit in Biarritz, France, in mid-October.

The EU leaders are also expected to respond positively to Kostunica's appeal for his country to be brought back into the European mainstream following the overthrow of Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

The nations of the western Balkans were excluded from the EU's expansion plans as war tore the former Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s. About a dozen East European nations are in line to join the EU in the years ahead.