During its plenary session on Thursday 24 November, the European Parliament voted by a large majority (540 votes in favour, 29 votes against, with 52 abstentions) to grant micro-financial assistance worth €200 million to Jordan. This funding is essential for the economic stability of the country.
MEPs would initially like to increase this aid to €350 million, before aligning it (following negotiations with the member states) with the €200 million initially proposed by the European Commission. This amount is allocated in the form of loans over the next two years, which will also be used to support the substantial reform programme that is supposed to strengthen the country’s balance of payments requirements (see EUROPE 11661).
Jordan now finds itself in a particularly difficult situation: since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the country has played host to 1,300,000 Syrian refugees, growth contracted by 2.4% of GDP in 2015, unemployment this year rose to almost 14.6% of the active population and the country’s debt reached 93.4% of its GDP by the end of 2015.
This macro-financial assistance will help strengthen the recent but increasingly close partnership between the EU and Jordan. (Original version in French by Thomas Régnier)