Belgrade, Oct 10, 2003 - Serbian Commissioner for Refugees Ozren Tosic met today with EU Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) representative Cornelius Wittebrood and thanked ECHO for more than €500 million of support in the past ten years for refugees, internally displaced persons and socially underprivileged people in Serbia.

The meeting was also attended by head of ECHO's Belgrade office head Kevin Menion and European Commission chief of mission in Belgrade Geoffrey Barrett.

The last of the ECHO's projects, that secured heating fuel for collective centres in Serbia, was worth €1 million.

ECHO, one of the world's biggest humanitarian organisations, will withdraw from Serbia by the end of this year. ECHO representatives, however, expressed readiness to continue the cooperation with Serbia. The situation in Serbia cannot be described as a humanitarian catastrophe, but this organization will support those socially underprivileged citizens, the Serbian government said in a statement.