EU commissioner tours flood-hit town
EU Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn over the weekend visited the flood-devastated municipality of Obrenovac and met with Serbian officials.
Monday, 26.05.2014.
11:13
EU commissioner tours flood-hit town
He said it should be pointed to the extent of damage caused by the floods by showing pictures taken on the ground via European media to make solidarity of Europeans grow even more."People in Serbia need assistance. Their suffering has no end, although they have been underwater for as many as ten days now. As I have heard, it all depends on the Danube right now, for as long as the Sava cannot flow into the Danube, there will be no improvement of the situation," Hahn said, adding that this is a great tragedy.
Noting that "the whole Europe stands ready to help," he pointed to the example of Austria, stressing that "the help of immediate neighbors still stands out the most."
When it comes to drawing money from the EU Solidarity Fund to help cover part of the costs to rebuild the country after the disaster, Serbia, a candidate for membership, "is already treated like a member state," Hahn said.
The support of the European Union for Serbia after being badly hit by heavy flooding recently is overwhelming and we have already reached an agreement on mechanisms to use aid from the Union, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić said on Saturday.
At a joint press conference after a meeting he had with European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn in Belgrade today, Vučić expressed his desire to use the opportunity and thank the European commissioner for visiting Serbia today.
The prime minister also thanked the European commissioner for his plans to visit devastated areas, and in particular Obrenovac, today.
“It is good to have around the world as many friends as possible, who will be reporting what they saw in the simplest of ways. We wish to get to a final assessment of damages with the help of people from the EU as soon as possible,” he said.
Vučić said mechanisms for use of EU aid, particularly those falling under Commissioner Hahn’s responsibility, which is humanitarian aid, have already been agreed.
"The support coming from the EU, though huge, will not be enough for everything that is needed in relief efforts after the catastrophic floods," Vučić said.
The prime minister added that in the talks with Hahn, he stressed that Serbia will not be deceiving anyone in its assistance requests after the assessment of damages.
Hahn told a joint press conference with Vučić that it was essential to identify priorities and to see in what way aid for the areas and people badly hit by the floods can be ensured.
The EU commissioner said that he arrived in Belgrade "to tell the Serbian people that the EU will do everything to help," pointing out that a certain amount of money can already be used for reconstruction and rehabilitation, but we still need to wait for all the necessary estimates of damages to be completed.
Together, EU and Serbian experts are already looking for ways to make money from EU funds reach the endangered areas as soon as possible, said Hahn.
He said that it was "very difficult to talk about exact figures at the moment, but Serbia will certainly get a lot of money," and added that everybody will do their best to get everything done as soon as possible and to bring everything back to normal in a year’s time.
On behalf of the EU and the European Commission, Hahn conveyed condolences to the families of those who perished in the floods.
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