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Contributions from
the Column
Facts and trends
Reconstruction in Iraq: windfalls from war
Trade alone does not deliver development
Concern over independence of EU humanitarian aid
Debt relief for Iraq?
UN adopts convention to fight corruption
Security situation in Afghanistan fragile
German-Indonesian cooperation
Bribery in Nigeria’s oil business
Interview with Hans-Joachim Preuss: “The Kunduz operation will not bring more security”
12/2003
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[ Concern over independence of EU
humanitarian aid ]
Poul Nielson, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, and NGOs fear that under the future EU Constitution the community’s humanitarian assistance could be turned into an instrument of foreign policy. Alert Net, a Reuters Foundation information service, quoted Nielson as saying the draft Constitution lacked a clear pointer to the neutrality of EU humanitarian aid. Indirect references in the text to foreign policy goals were also problematic. “We carry out humanitarian assistance because there is a need, full stop,” Nielson said. The European humanitarian aid organisations’ network, VOICE, said it feared the EU Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) could lose its independence. Both Nielson and VOICE appealed to the politicians to revise the wording on humanitarian aid.
Nielson and the NGOs also reject the draft text’s planned creation of a European Volunteer Corps for humanitarian assistance. They say the project would reduce to absurdity the goal of professionalising humanitarian aid. Development Commissioner Nielson described the idea as “somewhat romantic and ill-advised”. (uke)
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