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BELGRADE, Sept 27 (Reuters) - A group of independent Yugoslav economists will this week urge European Union leaders to press ahead with a plan to supply fuel and generators to Serbian cities controlled by democratic opposition parties.
"Our aim is to persuade leaders of key European Union countries to incorporate Serbia in the process of economic reconstruction of the Balkans," Mladjen Dinkic, coordinator of the "G17" group of economists, told Reuters in an interview.
"We have worked out a plan to prepare everything so that the assistance can start arriving immediately, and before (Yugoslav President) Slobodan Milosevic steps down."
Serbia's power grid was badly damaged by NATO's bombing campaign this year to force Serb security forces out of the ethnic Albanian-majority province of Kosovo. Serbia has been excluded from Western reconstruction assistance as long as Milosevic stays in power.
But the EU has proposed an "energy-for-democracy" scheme under which opposition-held towns would receive fuel to ease hardship there, although details have yet to be agreed.
EU foreign ministers are due to discuss aid to Serbia on October 11, and Dinkic said they also planned to meet G17 members and representatives of Serbian opposition parties.
Dinkic, one of the organisers of an anti-Milosevic rally in Belgrade last month which attracted more than 100,000 people, is travelling to Helsinki, Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, London and the Hague with G17 colleagues Miroljub Labus and Radovan Jelasic.
AID TO BE STRICTLY SUPERVISED
He said the aid was aimed at isolating the regime and providing help to ordinary people while avoiding corruption, and that the supply of fuel and generators would be strictly supervised by independent agencies in Serbia and from abroad.
"The European Union is facing a big test to prove to ordinary Serbs that the things it has done to this country were not against them, and to compensate them for what has been destroyed," he said.
He said the EU was likely initially to provide diesel, heating oil and generators, and that if the programme did help to isolate the regime, it could be expanded to big transformers.
He said the damage to the power grid alone was estimated at $250 million.
Government officials have insisted there will be plenty of energy during the winter after securing a deal for natural gas from Russia.
But Dinkic said Serbia would pay dearly for the gas from Gazprom, as it would be bought on credit. Serbia already owes Russia $650 million for gas and crude oil.
"This deal is some kind of Russian political manoeuvre for their local audience, rather than something really good for Serbia. They are also facing various hardships," he said.
Even if there was enough gas it would not mean an end to winter hardships as most of Serbia's heating was electric, Dinkic said.