EU: EUR800 Million To Western Balkans And Turkey For Alleviating Damage From Epidemic

European Union (Shutterstock)

The European Union has earmarked 800 million euros for the Western Balkans and Turkey in aid for their health systems and for alleviating the economic and social damage from the corona virus epidemic, the European Commission stated in Brussels on April 8.

Of this money from the EU funds, Serbia will receive 78.5 million for removing the economic and social consequences of the pandemic, 15 million for covering the costs of deliveries of urgent medical equipment by air and 7.5 million for modifying and equipping a laboratory for producing corona virus tests.

The EU is providing this assistance  within the EUR15.6 billion aid package to "partner countries," mainly in Africa and other parts of the world, as well as in the Balkans and direct neighbors of the Union, as "urgent support for humanitarian needs, strengthening the health systems, improving capacities for fighting the pandemic and removing of social, welfare and economic consequences."

The EU commissioner for enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi, has stated that this aid was being given "because we live on the same continent and only together can we succeed" in suppressing the corona virus and removing the economic and social consequences of the corona pandemic. Varhelyi said that the EU had designated a total of EUR3.8 billion as support to their eastern and southern neighbors, and to the Western Balkans and Turkey.