Diplomatic row is looming between European Union and Kenya over remarks by the EU envoy, giving the government up to Dec. 31 deadline to enforce two crucial laws to enable the East African country benefit from 125 million euros ( 150 million US dollars) budget support funding.

Addressing a news conference in Nairobi on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere termed the remarks attributed to new EU Head of Delegation to Kenya, Eric van der Linden as "rude and undiplomatic."

"It's rude and undiplomatic to issue ultimatums to the head of state. It runs counter to every principle of diplomatic etiquette for a diplomat to issue threats to the very person to whom he is accredited," Mwakwere told reporters in Nairobi.

"The government wishes to acknowledge that, while assistance from our partners in development is welcome, and plays an important role in our development, it should not be used as leverage for interference with this country's legislative process, " he said.

During a media breakfast meeting on Tuesday, Linden said Kenya could lose millions of euros in budgetary support unless President Mwai Kibaki approves tough anti-graft laws by the end of the year.

However, the EU envoy, the bloc's new ambassador to Kenya, said he was hopeful that Kibaki would meet a Dec. 31 deadline to sign a law that aims to make the country's graft-riddled government procurement more transparent.

Without implementation of the law, adopted by parliament in July after long delays, the EU will be forced to withhold a first 50-million euro (60 million dollars) tranche of a planned 125- million-euro aid package, he said.

"Most of the EU conditions have been met and so we are essentially now waiting for the president to sign the procurement act. We have been in close contact closely with IMF and World Bank and that essentially the technical conditions have been all met and the disbursement of the first tranche will be in the foreseeable future provided that everything goes right," Linden said.

"So, once the president (has) signed, we will sign the financing agreement and decide on the disbursement of the first tranche," he added, warning that if the deadline is not met, the EU's spending authorization will lapse.

But the foreign minister who said he has sent a protest note to the EU envoy said the east African nation's legislative process is not aimed at attracting donor funding or please foreigners.

"Foreigners are not custodians of Kenya's national interest. The government acts on the basis of what is in Kenya's national interest," the minister charged.

He said the procurement bill was submitted to the country's Attorney General on Tuesday for publication and later will be passed on for presidential assent.

"If the EU head of delegation was not aware of the procedures, he should have obtained clarification from the government," said Mwakwere.

"While we highly value donor support, we need to point out that due to past experience we have had with donor conditionalities, the current national budget has no component of donor support. Future budgets will also not be pegged on donor funding," he said.

The EU says the bills which include the public procurement bill, establishing independent procurement bodies, the privatization bill, which will oversee the sale of some 209 public corporations, are core to the development of Kenya's economic growth.

The 25-member union pledged to aid Kenya's reform in 2003 but the delay in releasing the funds have been caused by the slow progress in the fight against corruption, which saw several donors ' severe funding ties with Kenya.

Earlier this year, the bloc, Kenya's largest collective donor, warned Kibaki's government about rampant graft and its failure to crack down on the vice which had already led to the suspension of millions of dollars in bilateral aid, notably from the United States and Germany.

Source: Xinhua