EU Executive to Unveil Uajor Africa Spending Plan

By Ingrid Melander Posted 07 July 2006 @ 03:53 pm EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union executive commission hopes to convince member states to spend more than 6 billion euros on regional infrastructure in Africa from 2008 to 2013, a Commission official said.

The executive has drawn up maps of road, energy, water and information technology networks in Africa, highlighting missing links which could be closed with EU financing, the official said.

The executive will not mention a figure next week when it unveils its proposal on projects and partnerships, the official said.

But it hopes EU states will agree to spend more than 6 billion euros on co-financing these regional links, with most of this coming from the EU Development Fund's 22 billion euros for 2008-2013, the Commission official said.

The wealthy bloc's 25 countries have already agreed that such building will be one of the focuses of the EU's aid policy, with partnerships to be established among EU states and with African countries, one EU diplomat said.

But they have yet to decide how much they would allocate to each country, and for which projects, the diplomat added.

The Commission official said the EU executive also hopes that individual EU states will add their own contributions to financing the projects, the Commission's aim being to create partnerships.

But some EU states have voiced misgivings about the executive's plans for channelling aid through one joint fund.

The EU executive and the bloc's soft lending arm, the European Investment Bank, launched a European trust fund in February aimed at disbursing aid for infrastructures in Africa independently of the World Bank.

The European Union calls itself the world's major aid donor, with its figures showing the EU budget and EU countries together provided $43.3 billion in 2004, over half of international aid.