Brussels, 10/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - The EU budget proposals may threaten humanitarian aid, the NGO Oxfam warns. The organisation is concerned at the growing politicisation of aid and loss of the independence which underpins its governing principles.
The NGO sounded the alarm on Thursday 10 February, in light of differences of opinion between the Commission and the Parliament over the budgetary perspectives 2014-2020, which will be presented to the June European Council. Some parties are pushing for ECHO funding to merge with the crisis management pot. “Scrapping the budget for humanitarian aid would be a fatal error. It would not only tarnish the excellent credentials of the Commission as an outstanding humanitarian actor but also endanger millions of people who depend on ECHO's impartial and life-saving aid”, says Elise Ford, head of Oxfam International's EU office. Oxfam argues that these proposals politicise and threaten humanitarian action, which is already under risk of playing second fiddle to EU foreign policy, with the new architecture of the EEAS which arose from Treaty of Lisbon. To illustrate its point, Oxfam has also published a new report entitled Whose Aid is it anyway?, which highlights the exemplary role played by ECHO in providing effective aid to the victims of disasters and armed conflicts, independently of any political objective. In 2010, 17% of ECHO's budget was allocated to 12 “forgotten crises”, a long way from the spotlight and political current affairs, to cover urgent humanitarian needs, such as providing assistance to the thousands displaced by the conflicts in the Central African Republic and Sahrawi refugees in Algeria. (A.N./transl.fl)