ჩვენ კიდევ ვმათხოვრობთ
EU hopes to give billion euros in aid to Georgia(BRUSSELS) - The EU Commission, which has promised 500 million euros (712 million dollars) aid to help Georgia rebuild after its conflict with Russia, hopes member states will help double that total, an official said Tuesday.
"I would expect our input, as usual, to represent around 50 percent of the aggregated EU total pledge," said EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner in a letter to the European parliament's foreign affairs committee head.
However French Minister of State for European Affairs Jean-Pierre Jouyet, who addressed the parliamentary committee Tuesday, said the target may prove difficult to reach.
"We hope to get the highest amount possible," during a donors' conference next month, but it is difficult to give a figure in advance of that meeting, he told AFP after his speech.
"Don't forget that a number of member state are facing budgetary difficulties," he added.
Christiane Hohmann, Ferrero-Waldner's spokeswoman, said Monday that the commission "has drawn up a stabilisation and growth package of 500 million euros for the period 2008-2010".
That includes the continuation of the normal programme for Georgia plus assistance for displaced people, reconstruction, relaunching the economy, macro-financial stability plus new infrastructure, especially in the energy sector, she added.
Georgia normally receives between 30 and 40 million euros per year from the European Commission under the EU's "neighbourhood" programme.
However the European Union has promised to help the former Soviet republic following its battle against Russia for control of its breakaway region of South Ossetia last month.
The precise date of next month's donors' conference, to be held in Brussels, has not yet been fixed.
The United States has already said it will provide a billion dollars of aid to Georgia, most of it this year.
EU vows to help Vilnius reduce Russian energy dependence(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission on Wednesday promised to help Lithuania reduce its dependence on Russian energy supplies while not allowing it to keep its Soviet-era nuclear plant.
EU commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso told visiting Lithuanian Prime Minister Gedimimas Kirkilas that Brussels would help Vilnius develop renewable energy sources and help make energy savings, notably with the help of millions of euros available to make buildings more energy efficient.
A month after the conflict between Georgia and Russia he stressed the desire to reduce the country's dependence on Russian energy supplies, thanks to gas and electricity "interconnections" between Lithuania and its European neighbours Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Sweden.
"I am ready to develop a Balkans interconnection plan with all EU member states surrounding the Baltic Sea and give it high priority," he told a joint press conference with the Lithuanian leader.
Russia has regularly been accused of using its control of a hefty slice of Europe's energy market for political ends, allegedly turning off the taps to punish governments in Moscow's communist-era stamping ground that are too critical of the Kremlin.
Lithuania, which broke free from the crumbling Soviet bloc in 1991 and joined the EU in 2004, has been sparring with Russia since August 2006, when the Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft cut supplies to the country's only refinery.
Kirkilas said the Baltic nation would try to speed up the interconnection process ahead of a European Union summit on October 15-16.
He also renewed his plea to delay the EU-agreed closure of Lithuania's Soviet-era nuclear plant, which provides the bulk of the country's power.
Ignalina, built in 1983, is the same kind of nuclear plant as Chernobyl, which caused the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986, contaminating parts of Ukraine where it was located, as well as Belarus and Russia, then all part of the Soviet Union, and western Europe.
Barroso stressed that the agreement to close the reactor should be honoured, and indeed that he had no option to do otherwise.
"We must never compromise on safety," he said.
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Мелочь, но приятно-III, სასიხარულო ამბები ჩრდილოეთიდან
