Cabinet seeks aid increase for eastern Europe
The cabinet wants to extend its helping hand to eastern European countries by an additional SFr290 million ($282 million).
In June 2007 parliament agreed to earmark SFr730 million in financial and technical aid for countries in southeastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
All of that money will have been invested in projects by mid-2011, the foreign ministry announced on Wednesday.
The additional funding, which is subject to parliament approval, would allow Switzerland to continue the cooperation until 2012.
Switzerland has spent more than SFr6.5 billion since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 for the transformation into democratic societies.
Switzerland has also been contributing to efforts to help new European Union member states, including Poland, Hungary and the Baltic Republics, catch up with their wealthier and more stable counterparts.
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