E.C. heads promise aid

Press, 11 December 1989, Page 8

E.C. heads promise aid

NZPA-Reuter Strasbourg European Community leaders have agreed to set up a bank to help rebuild the shattered economies of reformist states in Eastern Europe. At two-day summit talks dominated by the political upheavals in the East bloc, the 12 E.C. leaders promised aid to Socialist governments which adopt democracy. “The Community and its member states mean to give their support to the countries which have embarked upon the road to democratic change,” a final

statement said yesterday. The upheaval in the East spurred E.C. leaders to patch up their differences. “What is happening in the other half of Europe helped us avoid the quarrels which usually characterise the summits,” said the Italian Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti. The French President, Francois Mitterrand, host of the summit in Strasbourg, and the West German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, both got what they wanted out of the summit. Mr Kohl managed to get his E.C.

partners to endorse for the first time the idea of reunification between the two Germanys — no longer a pipe-dream since the Berlin Wall crumbled last month. A pre-summit deal between France and West Germany ensured that Mr Kohl supported a crucial part of Mr Mitterrand’s own dream for pushing the Community towards closer political integration through economic and monetary union. Only the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, opposed it.