Brussels - Representatives from nearly 70 countries gathered
in Brussels on Wednesday for a donors' conference designed to raise
billions of dollars in aid to help Georgia recover from its August
conflict with Russia.
According to a World Bank report, Georgia needs a total of 3.7
billion dollars (2.9 billion euros) in aid over the next three years.
Of these, some 560 million dollars are already accounted for.
Much of the additional help is to be spent on rebuilding damaged
roads, helping resettle scores of refugees and getting the economy
back on track.
The European Union's executive arm, which is jointly hosting the
conference with the World Bank, has already pledged up to 500 million
euros in aid over a three-year period.
'We are here today to show our solidarity with the people of
Georgia,' said European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso at
the start of the conference.
Noting that any conflict around Europe has 'implications for the
EU's security and stability', Barroso said EU nations had 'a moral
imperative' to help their neighbours in need.
Several pipelines carrying oil and gas from the Caspian region to
Europe cross Georgia, whose projected economic growth for 2008 has
been cut from 9 per cent to 3.5 per cent as a result of the conflict.
The EU's external affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner,
said poverty had been falling while the state of the country's public
finances had been on the mend prior to the hostilities.
'The conflict has changed all that,' Ferrero-Waldner said.
According to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who helped
broker a peace deal between Georgia and Russia on behalf of the
presidency of the EU, providing financial aid to Georgia was Europe's
way of addressing political problems.
But the EU is also trying to bring Georgia closer to Europe by
providing visa facilities to its citizens and by trying to arrange a
free-trade deal with the government.
Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze was attending the
conference, but Russia was not invited.
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