EUROPEAN COMMISSION ASSISTANCE FOR IRAQ SET TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRUSSELS 000583 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/17/2018 TAGS: EAID PREL PGV IZ EUN SUBJECT: EUROPEAN COMMISSION ASSISTANCE FOR IRAQ SET TO DECREASE NEXT YEAR REF: BRUSSELS 108 Classified By: Alyce Tidball, Deputy Political Minister Counselor, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) (C) According to a member state contact EC assistance to Iraq will be moving to a bilateral technical assistance phase as opposed to funding through other multilatral donor organizations. Contact noted that there would be no increase in assistance to Iraq and there would inevitably be a decrease next year, but it was not yet clear how much the decrease would be. The best we could hope for, he said, was a slower decline in the level of assistance. This confirms reftel reporting that while the EU wants to be more engaged with Iraq it does not envisage increasing or even maintaining current levels of funding for assistance. At that time, EU contacts noted concerns about limited Iraqi capacity to absorb all the assistance funds that have already been made available. They have also noted that increases in oil revenue make foreign assistance less critical and difficult to justify. Contact also noted that the EU is about to come into its budget cycle again with the preliminary draft budget due out on April 30. Now is the time to approach the EU, he said, to influence any budget decisions in order to get suggested changes into the Council's first reading of the budget in May. Murray .