Italy unlikely to fill its obligations towards African and Asian Development Funds

Italy is likely not to fullfill its financial commitments towards the African and Asian development Funds, as the Chamber cut 40 million euros to the financial resources appropriated for these Regional banks. Italy has already a 2 year delay towards the African a Asian development funds, but the cut 40 million will be committed to the Italian brand new participation to the Corporaciòn Andina del Fomento.

Officers within the Ministry for Economy and Finance (MEF) - responsible to manage the Italian contributions to multilateral financial funds - think that the approved amount will be enough to comply with the commitments. They think that Italy will get a discount by disbursing all its financial commitments in one installment. If this is not the case, in 2008 the Government will have to present another bill to fill the deficit. Procedures for resources appropriation to the regional development Banks are more complex than those for bilateral and UN related commitments that are managed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Yet, there is no law -not even in law n°49 - making any reference to any procedure to multilateral development Bank. In the late '90 the MEF proposed to simplify the procedures, but this proposal was ruled out.