Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-13-Speech-2-446"
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"en.20071113.38.2-446"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would briefly like to thank you for the very broad support for Mr Cornillet’s reports and the Commission’s positions.
As regards Palestine, I do not believe that the European Union is giving with one hand and taking with the other. There are of course questions surrounding the fact that our development assistance and, in particular, our humanitarian aid are often held to ransom by the situation in Palestine, but I do not feel that the European Union, and certainly not the Commission, deserve to be accused of taking back as much as they have given.
I would like to make a short comment, Mr Schmidt, on humanitarian aid in Eritrea. There is no humanitarian aid in Eritrea; we do not spend a cent on humanitarian aid there. I presume you are confusing it with development assistance. In our political dialogue with Eritrea, the issue of the journalist that you mentioned is always on the agenda. I called, in fact I met, Issaias and spoke to him about this issue. He is hiding behind the fact that the problem is strictly a matter of Eritrean law.
I obviously share your point of view and your position on this matter, but linking development assistance to this issue is extremely dangerous. If you tie the journalist’s release, for example, to a political decision, if you tie your development assistance to this issue, who will suffer? Not the Eritrean authorities, but the people you want to help, in other words the population.
It is slightly more complicated than you seem to think. We cannot necessarily tie such issues together. Even though they are highly distressing issues, which I worry about and which are a permanent topic in our dialogue – and I am constantly applying pressure to try to get this problem resolved – we cannot tie them to the granting of development assistance.
In any event, as far as humanitarian aid is concerned, I can tell you that there is no European humanitarian aid in Eritrea, although we do finance development projects there.
The response to forgotten crises is precisely a better division of work. It is clear that if there is no division of work and humanitarian aid or development are dependent on political opportunity, on a country’s foreign policy, you will naturally have forgotten crises and orphan countries; hence the division of work is the only response.
The idea of a humanitarian atlas, for example, like the development atlas, which is making excellent progress and has already been implemented, is clearly a good solution. I also agree with the many speakers who referred to the need to emphasise the crucial role of local actors and the involvement of civil society.
As regards the CERF, I completely agree – and I have said this on several occasions to the United Nations, to OCHA, to everyone, and you know my position on it – ECHO will not contribute to the CERF unless additional funds are available. Each year ECHO spends everything it has available for humanitarian actions, and if an ECHO contribution were to be necessary it should be in addition to this.
Secondly, in reality ECHO is a European CERF. It is important to remember this. Thus there is no great need for it. ECHO is just as flexible – I dream of having the same flexibility in the development sector – and perhaps even more flexible than the CERF. Thirdly, I would like the UN to concentrate on its core business in relation to humanitarian aid, which is essentially the coordination of humanitarian aid and that is where OCHA comes in. There is important work to be done in that regard, too.
Mr Hutchinson asked a very important question about the description, or to some extent the label – even if that is a dangerous word – given to NGOs and civil society actors. I agree with him that we cannot of course hold NGOs up to public opprobrium because of one association or another. I should mention in passing that the Commission has never contributed to Zoe’s Ark, nor has it ever financed it or used it as an operator, and I want you to know that so that there is no misunderstanding.
Having said that, the question you raise makes me think of a question that we should perhaps discuss with the NGOs – and I have already had the opportunity to talk about it – namely the creation of a high authority of NGOs and civil society actors, which would consist exclusively of NGO and civil society representatives. There is therefore no provision for public authorities to be represented in this high authority, and I saw that Bernard Kouchner reacted to this proposal. It could to some extent be modelled on what is know as the medical association or the professional association, for example, which themselves resolve a number of problems that might otherwise arise, on the basis of a code of practice and ethics. That is one suggestion that I am putting forward, although it would be worth looking into it in detail.
As far as the new Member States are concerned, I am very pleased to note that there is high degree of willingness, especially among some of them – and the Czech Republic comes to mind in particular – to demonstrate international solidarity through greater humanitarian aid in the future.
It is also important to point out that six Member States (of EU25) alone provide 49% of the European Union’s total aid and that the share of the other 19 Member States accounts for 18% of the total. Thus the commitment in the humanitarian field is far from balanced."@en1
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