Pakistan aid
June 17, 2009
The aid was announced at the start of talks between EU delegates and Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and will be combined with around 50 million euros diverted from other projects, officials said.
The aid was intended to "help the most vulnerable" among the hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by fighting between government and Taliban-linked forces in the Swat Valley, they said.
"I will be able to announce today more than 100 million euros ... because we stand by the Pakistani people," EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said as she arrived for the talks.
"In exchange, we want Pakistan to take the fight against terrorism very seriously, but that they also do a lot on their own home front," she said. "That means on all the questions of good governance, that we work together with them on education."
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the meeting with Zardari was also aimed at bolstering his efforts to tackle the economic crisis in Pakistan.
Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who chaired the summit as the holder of the EU's rotating presidency, said the EU "takes Pakistan very seriously" and was "aware of the tremendous importance Pakistan has in the region."
But Zardari said that he was most interested in boosting trade relations with the world's largest economic bloc. "What I need is trade, not aid," he said before the summit.
The talks are the first at summit-level between the EU and Pakistan and signal an upgrade in relations.
dfm/AFP/dpa