The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and neighbouring countries, at a time when more than 1.5 million people have already left the country to flee the war, is a cause for concern and full solidarity on the part of the European Development Ministers with the civilian populations affected by the Russian military offensive.
The mobilisation for Ukraine and Ukrainians and the need for a more geopolitical development policy dominated the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in its Development format on Monday 7 March in Montpellier (see EUROPE 12904/8).
“The invasion of Ukraine poses a huge humanitarian problem. The Russian army is continuing its offensive with the systematic destruction of infrastructure, not only military, but also civilian. Houses and civilian infrastructure are being systematically targeted”, said the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, after the meeting. Referring to the 1.6 million refugees as “exiles”, he said he was very concerned that the figure could rise to 5 million, “a reasonable estimate”.
“These refugees will have to be hosted by European countries” while “more than 18 million people will be affected by the conflict in Ukraine”, he continued.
€100 million in immediate emergency aid. According to him, the exchange between the ministers identified a first instalment of €100 million in immediate aid to Ukraine and Moldova to fund food, water, healthcare, shelter and basic protection of citizens - out of more than €500 million in humanitarian aid from the EU budget already announced by the European Commission.
“If the bombing continues like this, if cities continue to bombed indiscriminately, we will find ourselves on the eastern border of Europe with a major problem”, he warned on arriving at the meeting, insisting on the need for “more money, more reception capacity, more food, schools, reception camps, in other words, to expand our capacity, to convert money into material resources on the ground”.
The High Representative assured that the EU would also build resilience in both Ukraine and Moldova, “which feels threatened and needs economic and political support”, and that the European Investment Bank had decided to redirect €700 million in cash to support the Ukrainian economy.
The urgency, however, “at the moment is to help the refugees and find a way to get a ceasefire to open the door to negotiations”. To this end, on the same day, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, called the Russian President.
Mr Borrell told the press that he himself had spoken by telephone during the Montpellier meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, asking that China “use all its influence” because “given its common links and views with Russia, it can play an important role, if it wants to”.
Geopolitics of development aid. The ministers discussed the geopolitical dimension of EU assistance, including why “some countries with which we have very close ties and which we help a lot, did not follow through on the vote we asked for to condemn Russia at the United Nations”, said the High Representative. He added: “We need to have a more political vision of our aid, to ensure that the international community first condemns Russia’s action, establishes a coalition to help Ukrainian refugees, to support Ukraine”.
In his view, a more geopolitical development policy requires “clarity, unity, firmness, and credibility”, which the ministers reportedly agreed upon.
“Europe must take its place”, said French Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who was at his side. Recalling that “we [the EU, its Member States and its financial institutions, editor’s note] are the top source of official development assistance”, he criticised “the instrumentalisation of development for political ends” by other powers and called on the EU to make its aid “a tool for partnership while respecting sovereignty”.
According to him, the Ukrainian crisis is “a tragedy from which we are far from having emerged. But the violence of Russia’s attack on Ukraine has led to a very strong stimulus of the EU. This will be confirmed at the summit [the European informal summit in Versailles, editor’s note] on Thursday and Friday”.
With Russia and Ukraine blaming each other for the delay in establishing humanitarian corridors, Mr Le Drian accused Putin of being responsible. “Let’s beware of traps”, he said before the resumption of Russian-Ukrainian talks during the weekend.
The €100 million of humanitarian aid from France will be for refugees and displaced persons in Ukraine, he said. “Germany will also help, of course: €37 million have already been made available by the Foreign Ministry for humanitarian aid”, announced German Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze, also citing more than €38 million of support from her own ministry.
Urgent need for a ceasefire. Polish Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paweł Jabłoński, stressed that his country was doing everything possible to support and house more than a million refugees. “We must redouble our humanitarian efforts, but also our efforts to stop the war. This is not often said in a Foreign Affairs/Development Council, but we need to repeat it as loudly as possible”, he said, arguing for new sanctions against Russia on oil, gas and coal revenues, to “stop Putin”, who he believes will otherwise “attack other States”.
“We have to have decisive action, to be united as a European Union to support those Member States that are on the front line, not only Poland, but those countries that are accepting refugees in large numbers and that are bearing huge costs of integrating these refugees into their societies, because these costs will be in the billions”, he predicted, saying that these costs will be “comparable to what we have already spent during the Covid-19 pandemic”.
The chair of Parliament’s Development Committee, Tomas Tobé (EPP, Sweden), recalled that the European Parliament is calling for humanitarian corridors and long-term funding to cover the needs in Ukraine, “but also additional funding to ensure that we have enough financial resources for other crises like Afghanistan”.
MEP Benoit Lutgen, head of the Belgian EPP delegation, accompanied by MEP Georges Dallemagne, chair of the Belgium-Ukraine friendship group, and Marta Barandyi, founder of the Promote Ukraine association, announced on Monday that he was on his way to Ukraine to deliver protective equipment and medicines and to meet with humanitarian, political and military leaders, particularly in the Lviv region.
According to Svenja Schulze, the meeting in Montpellier was an opportunity to “discuss the long-term consequences as well [of the war in Ukraine], because we import a lot of wheat from Russia and Ukraine, and for Africa this is very important”. If this war continues and wheat production is compromised, “an additional 8 to 13 million people will go hungry in Africa”, she warned.
Biodiversity and sustainable food systems. The ministers also discussed the issue over lunch - biodiversity loss being “a serious issue, which receives less attention than climate change”, the High Representative stressed.
The former president of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, was invited to the discussion in his capacity as “champion for the mobilisation of resources for the Great Green Wall”, an example of a large-scale project launched by the African Union in 11 Sahelian countries and relaunched in 2021, which contributes to the protection of biodiversity, the fight against land degradation, and the development of sustainable agricultural policies. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)