Strasbourg, 05/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The new Peruvian President, Alejandro Toledo, received the assurance of European support, during his meetings on Tuesday in Strasbourg with the representatives of the Parliament and European Commission. The Commission will soon free an aid of EUR 60 million that had been frozen since the election of Fujimori in June 2000, announced Alejandro Toledo following his meeting with the Commission Vice-President, Loyola de Palacio. This one-year aid will be divided between the fight against poverty (EUR 12 million), the fight against drugs (28 million), health (12.5 million) and economic development (8.5 million). The Commission should also provide food aid of EUR 10 million.
Alejandro Toledo also raised with Commissioners Nielson, Lamy and Patten the concluding of a financial memorandum of EUR 86 million for the 2002/2006 period, and the extension of the "Andean" system of generalised preferences until 2004.
I not only came to call for a support to our economic recovery, nevertheless added Mr Toledo before the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, while adding "my message is that there is in Latin America a continent which is holding out its hand for true trade". The Peruvian President, who will begin his duties next 28 July, played with the hearts of the parliamentarians by calling for the integration of an Andean community without passports and with a single currency, for the enhancing of the democratic institutions "still fragile in Peru", and the formation of a coalition government to successfully implement the reforms of the Peruvian legal and administrative system. This priority will remain the social programme, as if we do not answer the social expectations of the 4.5 million Peruvians, which find themselves below the poverty line, we risks frustrating their democratic hopes.