Brussels, 22/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - The EU took the initiative of organising a meeting on Tuesday 22 February in Brussels. Many international financial bodies (in addition to the Commission, member states, the EIB, World Bank, UN and its agencies, the OECD, Council of Europe and the Gulf country investment funds) held their first discussions on assistance to Tunisia and Egypt. These two countries have completed their political transformation but they require international aid to help their economies recover. The stated objective is to create mechanisms for ensuring coordination of international support and overseeing the coherence of each partner's action to help these two countries.
The meeting was expected to focus more on Tunisia. Contacts with this country are more advanced and a visit on 12 February by Catherine Ashton, which followed a visit to Brussels by the former Tunisian foreign affairs minister, helped outline Tunisia's needs more clearly, even if these needs still require further clarification. Contacts with Egypt have barely begun and it is too early for the EU and international partners to assess the country's needs and what orientation they should adopt for providing the funding required.
Speaking on behalf of the European institutions, Ashton announced that a figure of €258 million from budgetary resources (EUROPE 10319) had already been calculated, and that this commitment would be speeded up, in addition to the €17 million of “fresh money” which would not be a closed sum and would only correspond to action that had really been identified and calculated. This sum not initially appear to be very much to the Tunisians (almost all of which would go towards helping with preparing for the elections). It is expected to be gradually increased on the basis of any new action identified. The Commission has delegated many experts working in the field to speed up civil society case study projects in order to help institutions promoting democratic action, such as charities, the press etc, and also to help cut down the amount of time these procedures take. The European high representative announced during her visit to Tunis that almost €1 billion would be released from European Investment Bank (EIB) resources for the whole of the Mediterranean region. The EIB has been doing its sums and has indicated that the figure decided on for Tunisia alone will be around €886 million in loans this year, as opposed to €493 million in 2010. Focus will be on job creation projects involving SMEs, micro-companies and microcredit, which are more efficient when projects are more socially orientated and involve the promotion of regional decentralisation. The tourist sector has been most affected by the events since the holidays at the end of last year and it will receive a credit line.
The EIB vice president is expected to visit Tunis on 2-3 March to deepen the consultation strategy with the provisional authorities. The vice president, however, pointed out that “we will be short of resources in 2013” because Tunisia, and Egypt shortly afterwards, as well as the Mediterranean as a whole, will see their requirements significantly increase. The EIB has called on the member states and Parliament to raise additional funds of €1 billion, requiring an inter-institutional agreement on raising the ceiling on guarantees. On 17 February in Strasbourg the EP gave the go-ahead (EUROPE 10318) and a second reading by the Council is now required if a final decision is to be hoped for (undoubtedly by written procedure) in the next two months. The EIB will also attempt to reach an agreement from its directors to transfer around €120 million recovered from the sale of shares in major projects that already receive funding in the Mediterranean. (F.B./transl.fl)