Call for clarity on G8 aid pledge

G8 leaders agree €28bn in aid for north Africa; EBRD to operate outside Europe for the first time.

Egypt and Tunisia have asked governments in Europe for specific information on a pledge for support made by the G8 group of the world’s richest economies last week. 

Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, said at a news conference in Deauville on Friday (27 May) that G8 leaders had agreed $40 billion (€28bn) in pro-democracy funding for north Africa, including loans and grants by governments and international financial institutions.

The final summit statement made reference to “over $20bn” (€14bn) that multilateral development banks “could” provide for Egypt and Tunisia in the coming three years. That figure includes €3.5bn from the European Investment Bank, which had been previously announced.

Mandate change

The most tangible new pledge was made by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), set up 20 years ago to help Europe’s former communist countries make the transition to democracy and a market economy. Under a new mandate that would see it operate outside Europe for the first time, the EBRD is to provide €2.5bn a year to Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco. The bank’s 63 shareholders, principally European governments, are set to approve the new mandate before the summer.

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Ahead of the summit, the European Commission pledged €1.2bn in funding for new democracies in eastern Europe and the southern Mediterranean as part of a revised neighbourhood policy. The new funding will come out of existing budget lines managed by the Commission, which makes it impossible to assess how much of it is additional.

Essam Sharaf, Egypt’s transitional prime minister, and Beji Caid el Sebsi, his Tunisian counterpart, both addressed the leaders in Deauville. Both countries are to hold general and presidential elections later this year, amid fears that they could slide backwards on democracy.

YEMEN

EU member states have begun talks on possible sanctions against Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president of Yemen, whose decision to pull out of a transition deal has brought the country to the brink of civil war.

Scores of people died earlier this week, when government forces fought tribal militiamen in the capital, Sana’a, and elsewhere.

Diplomats stressed that they were far from a decision to impose sanctions on Saleh and his regime. The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) is still mediating in Yemen and has made it clear that sanctions would be counterproductive as long as talks are ongoing.

“We need to be absolutely sure that the GCC initiative won’t fly before we impose sanctions,” a diplomat said.

Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said yesterday (31 May) that she was “shocked” by the use of live ammunition against demonstrators and called reports of attacks on medical facilities “appalling”. “It is now time, without further pretexts, to sign and implement the GCC initiative on political transition,” she said.