BELGRADE (Serbia), April 3 (SeeNews) – The European Union has agreed to provide a 4.9 million euro ($5.3 million) grant for the purchase of medical equipment by Serbia's government, the EU delegation to Serbia said on Friday.
The grant will enable the acquisition of respirators, tests for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and protective and laboratory equipment, while the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) has been designated as implementing partner, the EU delegation to Serbia said in a statement.
The grant is part of the 93 million euro EU financial support to Serbia for immediate, short and medium-term measures to counter the impact of COVID-19, the EU delegation to Serbia said.
"With this 4.9 million euro grant agreement today we are helping Serbia purchase additional critical medical equipment. EU support will continue further, both in the immediate as well as short and medium-term, with a total value of 93 million euros, in response to Serbia’s needs," the head of the EU delegation to Serbia, Sem Fabrizi, said in the statement.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis, the EU has helped Serbia through the evacuation of stranded Serbian citizens from Wuhan and through financing the cost of five cargo planes transporting emergency medical equipment. It also invited Serbia to join the EU Joint procurement agreement for medical products, the delegation said.
"In difficult moments, we have to stick together and I am happy that European Union solidarity swiftly responded to Serbia’s request for assistance. We have allocated 15 million euros for immediate needs. We have already fully funded the transport costs of the first five cargo planes that arrived to Serbia in the past week with medical equipment," Fabrizi said.
Since the beginning of Serbia’s accession talks in 2014, the EU has donated to Serbia almost 2 billion euro of non-refundable grants to support the modernisation of the country.
($ = 0.925907 euro)