Brussels, 13/01/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 13 January, European Commissioners Benita Ferrerro-Waldner, External Relations, and Markos Kyprianou, Health and Consumer Protection, announced on that the European Commission is to pledge 80 million euro (around 100 million dollars) to help developing countries fight bird flu. This sum will be supplemented by donations from Member States to make up the EU's contribution at the conference, organised jointly by China, the EU and the World Bank, of donor countries to be held on 17-18 January in Beijing. The previous day David Nabarro, UN avian flu coordinator estimated that 1.5 billion dollars would be required to deal with the outbreak. The World Bank has promised 5000 million dollars.
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner explained that 50 million euro would come from the Commission's External Relations budget and 30 million from the European Development Fund (EDF). The latter sum remains subject to approval by Asian, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries which is expected by April. “Prevention is better than cure” she said, stressing that “a global threat requires a global response” - hence the importance of the Beijing meeting which will be attended by more than 20 countries and over 20 organisations. The Commissioner recognised the responsible conduct of China on this matter and said that the cooperation initiative in the form of a partnership launched last year by the United States would also feature alongside the conference. She expressed optimism on the financial target of the conference being reached. Mr Kyprianou said that when the Commission funding was added to that of the Member States, the EU would once again be the largest single contributor. He felt that this could be explained both by feelings of international solidarity, but also as a “mode of self defence”.