EUR 1.8 bn pledged for Serbia and Bosnia

EUR 1.8 bn pledged for Serbia and Bosnia

The donor conference was organized by the European Commission, France, and Slovenia, in a bid to help the Balkan countries deal with the aftermath of the catastrophic flooding in May.

Serbia was promised EUR 995.2 million worth of aid and over 80 countries and international organizations promised to deliver assistance, she said.

The commissioner noted that a lot of work needs to be completed in the reconstruction of the damaged infrastructure, and vulnerable groups must not be forgotten either, such as children, Roma and single parents.

She underscored that it is not enough to just build and restore the facilities to the same shape they were in before the floods, as more attention needs to be paid to safety issues and risks of potential new floods.

Representatives of 23 international organizations and 60 countries on Wednesday pledged to provide this assistance to Serbia and Bosnia - one third of the sum as donations, and the rest as favorable loans.

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić, who was in Brussels today, said that EUR 995 million in favorable loans and grants had been earmarked for Serbia, adding that he was "very pleased and proud about it."

“A total of 1,846 million euros, of which 995 million for Serbia, partly in the most favorable loans possible, partly in grants, which are allocated to us to deal with the problem and remove all the consequences of the flooding, have been collected,” Nikolić told Tanjug before the closing of the conference.

Nikolić said Serbia would justify the trust of the EU and all other donors.

“Serbia has deserved this (assistance) with its course of action over the last two years and Serbia will justify the trust placed in it,” he said.

“I am very grateful,” Nikolić said, adding that he had asked for the conference to be organized for Serbia, BiH and also Croatia, which had dropped the idea, and the move was a clear sign that Serbia wanted not only to be a leader in the Balkans, or the region of the countries of the former Yugoslavia, but also to bring the states together around common goals in order to forget earlier conflicts.

He pointed out that the money Serbia would be given would be spent exclusively for the purposes intended.

“These people here are clear and explicit. They want us to spend the money exclusively for the purposes for which they are allocating it and I believe our governments need to bear this in mind as we must not allow ourselves to stray in any way and betray the trust, which is obviously so great that they decided, for the first time in history, to organize a donors' conference like this,” Nikolić said.