EU pledges €500m in aid to Kosovo

Enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn has announced that the EU will make up half of the €1bn to be raised at the Kosovo donors’ conference.

“Kosovo is a profoundly European matter,” he told journalists at the start of the conference in Brussels on Friday. “And by pledging half a billion euros, the EU clearly demonstrates this.”

The money will go towards building up Kosovo’s energy and transport infrastructure, improving education, encouraging inward investment and creating institutions.

Kosovan prime minister Hashim Thaçi said the conference marked the beginning of a “new development phase” for the nascent state. “The donors’ conference is a new positive step for a better life for all citizens, and in the best possible way will be the practical implementation of a new beginning,” he said.

The EU has been organising donors’ conferences for Kosovo since 1999 and administers its funding through the independent European agency for reconstruction.

The agency – alongside the Kosovan government – will make sure, according to Rehn, that “every cent is accounted for and put to good use”. Rehn said he met on Thursday with members of parliament’s budget and budgetary control committees to assure them that the money would be well spent.

Under a UN plan for “reconfiguring” the way Kosovo is run, the EU’s EULEX rule of law mission is due to take over some responsibilities from UNMIK, the UN mission, in the coming months, but it continues to face opposition both from Kosovan Serbs and Belgrade.

Thaçi, however, says that the government is working hard to speed up integration, and advised Serbia to concentrate on its EU accession rather than fixating on Kosovo.

“The Balkan region has only one future and that is in the EU and Nato,” he said.

“It’s in the interest of Serbia not to lose too much time on Kosovo. If Belgrade is closer to Brussels then the citizens of Pristina will be closer to Belgrade.”

Kosovo has also applied to join both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and Thaçi remains confident that he will very soon get a yes on membership from both organisations.

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