European Union leaders are set to match a US plan by contributing $1 billion next year to a global fund to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
A draft statement to be adopted at an EU summit urged member states and the European Commission "to make a substantial contribution, on a long-term basis, to the financing of the fund so that it will receive up to $1 billion from the European Union in 2004".
The US President Mr George W. Bush announced plans last month to donate $1 billion a year to the fund over the next five years and challenged European partners to do the same.
But EU officials questioned the US figures and said the bloc already spends far more than Washington on fighting the killer diseases.