EU targets Kosovo pledges of 1 billion euros
(Adds details on donors, paragraphs 7-8)
By Mark John
BRUSSELS, July 11 (Reuters) - International donors signalled pledges worth close to 1 billion euros ($1.58 billion) for newly independent Kosovo at an aid conference on Friday billed as the first step to rebuilding its shattered economy.
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci announced that Kosovo, which broke away from Serbia in February, had applied to join the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). He reaffirmed its long-term goal of entering Western clubs such as NATO and the European Union.
The European Commission pledged 500 million euros of EU funds ahead of the one-day conference and the United States offered $400 million. Individual EU states were due to add their own contributions, with Germany signalling 100 million euros.
"I hope that the pledges over the conference will reach 1 billion euros," EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told a joint news conference with Thaci after opening the event.
That would leave a shortfall against the 1.4 billion euros of funding needs which Kosovo has identified from 2009-11, but Thaci said he was confident the donations would transform what was for decades the poorest part of the former Yugoslavia.
"We will make it an economic success story now ... This donors' conference will be positive for all citizens of the country," he said, promising fair access to funding for the Serb minority in the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian territory.
Sources close to the organisation of the conference said at least half the EU's 27 states were due to announce their own donations on top of the 500 million euros from the EU budget.
Spain, one of the minority of EU states that have not yet recognised Kosovo, said it would not offer a separate donation but a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Madrid stressed it was ready to provide humanitarian aid to the population if needed.
40 PERCENT JOBLESS
Five months after seceding from Serbia in defiance of Belgrade and its ally Russia, Kosovo remains weighed down by the destruction of the 1998-99 war -- when NATO waged a bombing campaign to drive out Serb forces engaged in ethnic cleansing -- and a legacy of waste and corruption under international stewardship.
It has been recognised by 43 mostly Western states, but could face bids by Belgrade and Moscow to keep it out of the international bodies needed to attract loans and investment.
However officials in Kosovo are convinced they can amass enough support to win membership of the World Bank and IMF. Thaci said he hoped for a positive answer soon to its application bids, filed on Thursday.
A large part of the new aid will go to servicing Kosovo's share of the Yugoslav debt inherited from Serbia.
Analysts say that regardless of the amount raised, the government will have a tough job fulfilling the expectations of its 2 million people, the youngest population in Europe but one struggling with over 40 percent unemployment.
The EU has made clear it wants gradually to take over responsibilities from the United Nations in Kosovo and guide it towards the far-off goal of possible EU membership. (Additional reporting in Madrid by Jason Webb; Editing by David Brunnstrom and Mark Trevelyan)
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