EU urges boosting humanitarian aid needs

[News_Editor]

EU urges boosting humanitarian aid needs

2011-01-19 13:46:29 GMT+7 (ICT)

BRUSSELS (BNO NEWS) - The European Parliament on Tuesday conducted a resolution vote in which it decided that the European Union's (EU) humanitarian aid capability should be stepped up, the EU said.

The resolution vote states that the EU needs to create a European civil protection force, boost funding, and ensure a clear division of labor between military and humanitarian bodies in crisis areas.

The recent tragedies in Haiti and Pakistan once again demonstrated that the effectiveness, speed, co-ordination and visibility of the EU's disaster response tools need to be improved, the Members of the Parliament (MEPs) said, highlighting the need to create a European rapid reaction capacity.

In addition, the MEPs called on the Commission to present a proposal to establish a European civil protection force, as advocated by Michel Barnier following the 2004 tsunami in south-east Asia.

It would be established by optimizing the existing Community Civil Protection mechanism and using existing resources already available in Member States in order to ensure that the initiative would entails no major additional costs, the MEPs explained.

Furthermore, the resolution, drafted by Michele Striffler, discusses the implementation of the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid, in the light of a growing number of complex crises - large numbers of displaced persons, violence among civilians, impact of climate change, among others.

MEPs call for more funding, to support the growing number of humanitarian operations. They also condemn the "politicization of humanitarian aid", whereby national interests influence the choice to provide assistance. MEPs argue that this has dire consequences, aggravating the erosion of "humanitarian space", the zone of neutrality in an armed conflict.

As international humanitarian law lacks visibility, MEPs asked the Commission to use additional funding to raise its profile.

The resolution vote also noted that While involving military and civil protection forces is deemed positive in large-scale natural disasters, during complex crises, MEPs said there needs to be a very clear distinction "between the remits of military and humanitarian bodies."

THey added that the use of military resources should be kept to a minimum and constitute a last resort.

Given the changing institutional context of humanitarian work, the report also urged the Council and the Commission to "introduce precise and transparent rules on cooperation and co-ordination between the European External Action Service and the Commission in the management of large-scale crises outside the EU."

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