Above: Haiti Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe with the delegation from the European Union (Photo: OPM Haiti)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Haiti Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe met Tuesday with a visiting delegation from the European Union led by Fernando Frutuouso de Melo, the director general of EuropeAid.

The EU official was joined on the trip by Jolita Butkeviciene, director of EuropeAid for the Americas.

The EU group was in Haiti to launch new budgetary support totaling around $156 million USD to Haiti.

At the conclusion of the EU visit, the two sides signed an agreement for the disbursement of the first tranche, which amounts to about one third of the overall support.

In a statement, Lamothe’s office said the government “welcomed the efforts of European cooperation,” thanking the European Union for what it saw as “renewed confidence” in Haiti.

The agreement was officially signed in a ceremony on Tuesday afternoon.