EC to Free $1 Billion in Aid for Soviets
European Community foreign ministers decided Tuesday to start freeing $1 billion in aid to the Soviet Union that had been blocked in a protest over violent crackdowns in the rebel Baltic republics.
“We have no desire to show any hostility toward President (Mikhail S.) Gorbachev or to jump to conclusions about his policy,” British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd said at a news conference. “We strongly support President Gorbachev the reformer.”
The decision to unfreeze the aid followed talks Saturday in Moscow between Gorbachev and three of the 12 EC foreign ministers.
A statement by the 12 ministers said that a final decision on credits for food purchases and the next phase of a technical aid program will be made when they reconvene March 4 in Brussels.
A package including $560 million of technical aid and $700 million in food credits was agreed on in December. But, in January, after more than 20 people were killed in Soviet army operations to seize public buildings in Lithuania and Latvia, the EC cancelled a key meeting with Soviet officials to discuss economic cooperation, and it stopped work on the package.
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