24 Rich Nations Set Terms for Aid to Eastern Europe

The industrialized world’s 24 richest nations approved a U.S.-backed plan Wednesday to give economic aid only to countries committed to human rights, multi-party democracy and free-market economics.

The so-called Group of 24, which is already coordinating a $14-billion aid package for Poland and Hungary, agreed to add Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and East Germany to the program but rejected both Romania and the Soviet Union.

The group’s decision to add the four Eastern European regimes was dimmed by its failure to put up any new money.

In a joint communique, the foreign ministers of the 24 countries, all democracies, said the aid package “requires further financial efforts from the whole Western community.” The statement said the ministers agreed to seek specific commitments from their own governments.

In the communique, the foreign ministers said Romania could not be included because the new government of President Ion Iliescu has not adopted sufficient political and economic reforms.

“They called on the Romanian government to resume the course of reform based on democracy, dialogue and peaceful change,” the communique added.

The declaration said the ministers only “exchanged views” about aid to the Soviet Union. It said the group was waiting for “positive developments of reform towards a democratic system and a market-oriented economy.”

Secretary of State James A. Baker III said the group adopted five criteria for assistance: adherence to the rule of law; respect for human rights; introduction of multi-party systems; holding free and fair elections, and development of market-oriented economies.

“Western assistance is not meant to maintain the status quo but to reform it radically,” Baker told a press conference.

A senior State Department official said later that it is the first time that international aid-givers had ever imposed such strict political conditions.

He said the group’s action amounted to approval of Baker’s doctrine of “democratic differentiation,” which calls for democracies to assist other democracies while shunning authoritarian states.

“It is enough of a trend that it is affecting attitudes globally,” the official said. “Some African nations are talking about multi-party systems because they are concerned about this.”

The group shuffled off for additional study a proposal by the European Community for a separate, special fund of more than $12 billion to provide short-term emergency loans to Poland, Hungary and the four newly approved recipients.

Frans Andriessen, the community’s vice president for foreign affairs, said the six nations need enormous amounts of short-term aid to stabilize their economies. He said he is not discouraged by the failure of the plan to win the group’s approval and he predicted that such a “safety net” would be adopted eventually.

The group took no action on a suggestion by Baker to establish a separate coordinated aid program for democratic governments in Central America. Baker said he would raise the matter again at a later meeting. A U.S. official said Baker envisioned a group smaller than the 24 aiding Eastern Europe to provide money for Central America.

Andriessen, the informal chairman of the group, said the “door is open” for Romania if the Bucharest regime changes its policies.

As for the Soviet Union, he said the group wants to await the results of a study ordered last week by a summit of the 12-nation European Community in Dublin.

But he added that the Soviet Union is “fundamentally different from all of the countries discussed today” because its massive economy needs far more money than the rest of Eastern Europe.

Baker said the United States wants to keep the Soviet Union out of the Group of 24 process although Washington will not try to prevent its allies from aiding Moscow if they wish.

“I don’t think we should divert attention at this stage from the vital task of aiding those countries in Central and Eastern Europe that suffered for so long under a totalitarian regime by addressing now a provision of economic assistance to the Soviet Union,” he said.

U.S. officials said East Germany was included in the aid list to dramatize the democratic reforms adopted by the regime since the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the official said it is unlikely that East Germany would get any aid from the group because of its economic merger this week with affluent West Germany.

Baker stopped in Brussels on his way to a NATO summit meeting that begins today in London.

On the trip from Brussels to London, however, he ran into the jaws of a French air traffic controllers’ strike that disrupted flight patterns all over Western Europe. Baker’s Air Force jet transport took on enough fuel for the scheduled hourlong hop. However, after the plane was forced to circle Heathrow Airport for more than 45 minutes waiting for a landing clearance, it had to land at Mildenhall, an air base about 70 miles from London shared by the United States and Britain, to refuel. Baker arrived in London three hours behind schedule.

Baker said aid for the Soviet Union may be discussed in London although it is not on the formal NATO agenda. He added that the subject is on the agenda for the seven-nation economic summit next week in Houston.

U.S. officials said President Bush probably will urge the economic summit to require Moscow to adopt political and economic reforms and to make sharp cuts in its massive military budget before Western nations consider any sort of assistance.