Brussels, 17/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 17 February, the European Union announced financial support of €12 million to fund the elimination of Syrian chemical stockpiles. The elimination is being supervised by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). This makes the commitment taken by the countries of the EU in December a reality - a commitment taken on the basis of a UN Security Council resolution which resulted in US-Russian agreement on the destruction of the Syrian chemical arsenal.
The European Commission wants “fruitful cooperation with the OPCW and the UN on this matter and [hopes] that the destruction of chemical weapons will be a step closer to bringing an end to the conflict in Syria”, said European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs, who signed the agreement with the organisation headquartered in the Hague. The cost of this programme has been put at €25-30 million by the OPCW.
Besides the €12 million, the EU has also provided other technical and logistical support totalling approximately €4.5 million. From 2004 until now, it has provided general support to the OPCW of €9.4 million; bringing the total EU contribution to the OPCW to almost €26 million.
The Syrian minister for foreign affairs last week criticised the EU's decision to draw on the frozen Syrian funds to finance part of the programme for removing chemical weapons. “It is a flagrant violation of international law and of the United Nations treaty (…) and a failure in international commitments to finance the process of destroying the Syrian chemical weapons”, he said in a press release (our translation). The amount to be taken from the frozen Syrian funds has not yet been fixed. (LC/transl.fl)