The European Union has pledged €411 million in aid to help the six Western Balkan countries fight the coronavirus outbreak.
Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia will be allocated €38 million for immediate support to their healthcare systems, and €373 million will go for social and economic recovery.
The news was announced by Olivér Várhelyi, the European Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, who tweeted:
I wrote to Prime Ministers of our #WesternBalkans partners to confirm we stand by the region in fight against #CoronavirusOubreak. We are allocating €38m for immediate support to health sectors & foreseeing over €373 m reallocation for social&economic recovery. 🇦🇱🇧🇦🇽🇰🇲🇪🇲🇰🇷🇸
— Oliver Varhelyi (@OliverVarhelyi) March 25, 2020
The head of the EU delegation in Kosovo Nataliya Apostolova stated that Kosovo’s share from this aid will be €68 million.
Kosovo people’s needs in difficulty are EU priority. We’ll fight together #COVID-19 challenges, in practical terms:
➡️up to €5m for immediate needs
➡️up to €50m to ease socio-economic impact
➡️up to €13m to support🇽🇰budget
Together we’ll come thru stronger! #EU4Kosovo https://t.co/0lqsnuS3kI— Nataliya Apostolova (@ApostolovaEU) March 25, 2020
The EU has announced some of its aid to Albania, Kosovo and Serbia earlier.
