BRUSSELS, June 29 (AFP) -- Nearly 100 donor countries and international organizations opened their checkbooks here Friday to bail out struggling Yugoslavia after Slobodan Milosevic's lightning transfer to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. 
	
	
 "Nobody is happy when a former president is taken before the tribunal in The Hague, but it had to happen and the sooner the better," Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus told reporters on his arrival here. 
	
	
 The donors' conference, co-sponsored by the European Commission and the World Bank, was hoping to raise 1.25 billion dollars (1.47 billion euros) for Yugoslavia this year for urgent repairs to infrastructure and salaries to teachers and other civil servants. 
	
	
 By midday, the conference had garnered pledges totalling some 1.37 billion dollars in grants and low- or no-interest loans over the next three years, against the target figure set by the World Bank of 3.9 billion dollars for what Belgrade would need for the three-year period. 
	
	
 The European Commission anounced it had pledged a financial package of grants and loans totalling 530 million euros (450 million dollars). 
	
	
 "This pledge is in addition to the pledges of individual EU member states that will be made separately at the conference," said Gunnar Wiegand, spokesman for External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten. 
	
	
 Labus said the United States, which had until the last minute been uncertain of attending the conference, contingent on Milosevic's extradition, pledged 181.6 million dollars during the morning session. 
	
	
 A German source said Germany had pledged 153 million marks (66.32 million dollars). 
	
	
 Japanese Ambassador to the EU Takayuki Kimura said his country had pledged 50 million dollars, in addition to technical assistance and another 10 million dollars to the whole of southeast Europe, most of it to Yugoslavia. 
	
	
 Johannes Linn, World Bank vice-president for Europe and Central Asia, said the bank had pledged 150 million dollars for the current calendar year and "over the next three years we expect to support Yugoslavia to the tune of about 540 million US dollars in concessional loans." 
	
	
 Linn said that as a result of recent changes in Belgrade, including the Milosevic extradition, "we will now be talking about Yugoslavia as an integral part of the successful formula of trust for economic recovery in the region." 
	
	
 Aside from the financial assistance, said Labus, "this conference is symbolic for us. We are now fully back into the international community, politically, diplomatically and financially, and that's very important for us. 
	
	
 "We decided to make some bold decisions," he said. "We decided to take the fast track to Europe and implement directly the international rules." 
	
	
 Labus said Milosevic's extradition "is of course a part of the equation," but added "broad economic reforms and democracy that we introduced into the country" had played a major role. 
	
	
 "The fact that Milosevic is on the way to be brought to justice is just a signal that my country is ready to respect all international obligations." 
	
	
 Labus recalled that his country was recovering from "a decade of dramatic economic decline, including trade isolation and sanctions... 
	
	
 "We are in the middle of a very complicated process of changing almost completely our political and economic system...This process is long and painful, but we are determined to win." 
	
	
 Infrastructure, including power, water, rail and roads, he said, were "suffering from many years of decay, mismanagement and the consequences of the NATO 1999 bombing campaign" that ended Belgrade's repression of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority. 
	
	
 "A Yugoslavia that has a firm and decisive program of economic reforms in place is and is increasingly integrated into the wider international community is no longer a dream, it is now a reality." 
	
	
 "There is no quick fix" to the Yugoslav problem, the World Bank's Johannes Linn said. "But the costs of failing to support Yugoslavia as it struggles to break with the past would surely be higher still. 
	
	
 "The possibility of a democratic, stable and prosperous Yugoslavia moving toward integration with Europe is something which we dared not hope for only eight months ago." 
	
	
 In Berlin, Bodo Hombach, coordinator of the Balkans Stability Pact, said several delegations to the Brussels conference told him it was now "easier and more motivating" to supply Belgrade with the aid it desperately needs. 
	
	
 The Stability Pact was launched two years ago to rebuild the region after years of war and communism.