EU offers Ghani government new partnership

KABUL.

“The EU is a longtime friend of the Afghan people and our support to Afghanistan will continue to be at an exceptional level,” the diplomat assured the president.

While looking forward to working as partners, he offered the new government a new kind of relationship, a statement from EU said.

“My meeting with Ghani marked the beginning of a new relationship between the EU and Afghanistan,” remarked Ambassador Mellbin.

He welcomed the government’s plan for realising self-reliance, saying the strategy set out an ambitious reform package that the EU hoped would be implemented.

“We share the president’s vision to increase aid effectiveness and look forward to working with him in realising this vision. We will … work together to ensure the conditions are in place for an EU State Building Contract with Afghanistan.”

The proposed contract will help Afghanistan strengthen its capacity to pursue its own policy objectives and gradually take full responsibility for its future development.

“The EU will continue to focus on priority sectors such as agriculture, policing and rule of law and democratisation. At the same time, the EU will continue to progressively increase the share of its support managed by the Afghan state.”

The EU will shortly start laying out a road map to assess where Afghanistan meets the criteria and to identify the extra conditions required to channel more aid directly to the Afghan state.

pr/mud

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