LONDON : New Money for Eastern Europe
The financial institution created to pull the new democracies of Eastern Europe out of poverty will be launched Monday in the relative opulence of London’s International Maritime Organization.
The institution, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, has pledges of more than $15 billion from 39 countries as well as the European Community and the European Investment Bank. The United States, at 10%, is the biggest shareholder, but the 12 EC nations together hold a majority share.
It will be the task of the bank’s board and its president, French economist Jacques Attali, to use the $15 billion as seed money to attract larger-scale corporate investments in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.
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