Belarusian dictatorship won’t get investment from EU
15:52, — Politics
Countries of the EU are launching the EU’s Neighbourhood Investment Facility (NIF). Unlike the neighbouring Ukraine, Belarus has lost a chance to receive the EU’s assistance.
The budget of the EU’s Neighbourhood Investment Facility is near ˆ1 billion. The exact figure cannot be named still, as some countries like Spain and Greece haven’t defined their contribution exactly. The European Commission plans to allocate ˆ700 million.
The NIF is a new financial instrument for the EU neighbours. Commenting on this event, Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner underlined:
“With this Investment Facility we will not only promote the construction of transport and energy infrastructure interconnections between the EU and our neighbours but we will also address common environmental challenges such as the use of renewable energy and the de-pollution of Mediterranean and Black Seas. Concrete projects financed under this facility will bring tangible benefits to citizens of the neighbouring countries and the Union alike and will bring our partners closer to the EU.”
Although the NIF will concentrate on the energy, transport and environment sectors, its support may also be provided for SME development and to social sector projects.
The geography of the EU partners includes a number of countries including the CIS countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine). But Belarus is not among them.
“These countries, as well as Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and some others had signed the European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plans agreed with the EU. And this document wasn’t sighed with Belarus. That’s the reason of such a result. We will get just a few kopecks from this project. And even this money we’ll receive thanks to our immediate neighbours, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. As far as I know, they have offered several projects embracing both their territory and frontier regions of Belarus. These are so-called trans-border projects.
If Belarus contacted with the EU decently, and cooperated with them, we would get much more money,” a well-known Belarusian political analyst Andrei Fyodarau said to Radio Svaboda.
