Xinhua
02/13/2004
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BRUSSELS - The European Commission (EC) Friday said it would provide Afghanistan with around 245 million euros (about 251.8 million US dollars) in aid for the year 2004.

The EC announced the figure in a memo released here Friday, which said the assistance is made up of two parts: over 200 million euros for Afghan reconstruction support and over 40 million euros for humanitarian aid.

At the Tokyo donors' conference in 2002, the executive arm of the European Union (EU) promised 1 billion euros over five years, or 200 million euros each year.

The memo says contributions from the EC have "outstripped" the Tokyo pledge. In 2002, the EC delivered over 280 million euros andthe figure was 300 million euros in 2003.

"The European Union has been and continues to be one of the major donors backing the reconstruction of Afghanistan," says the memo.

It adds that taking together contributions from the European Community Budget and EU member states, the EU provided over 850 million euros in 2002 and 835 million euros in assistance to Afghanistan in 2003.

Along with the release of the memo, the EC announced on Friday that the EU "Troika," namely, Irish Foreign Minister Brain Cowen, Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot and European Commissioner for external relations Chris Patten, will visit India, Afghanistan and Pakistan from Feb. 16 to Feb. 19.

Ireland is holding the EU Presidency while the Netherlands is to succeed Ireland to take the helm of the EU Presidency in the second half of this year.

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