To help the Ukrainian population cope with the winter despite the destruction of the country’s critical facilities by Russian strikes, the EU announced an increase in its immediate energy aid at the international conference ‘Solidarity with the Ukrainian People’, held in Paris on Tuesday 13 December, ahead of Thursday’s European Council, which is expected to welcome the outcome (see EUROPE 13082/11).
“We are providing, 800 electrical generators, for example, and soon up to 30 million LED light bulbs, which can help make precious energy savings. In addition, we are creating a new EU hub (logistics centre: Editor’s note) in Poland to deliver energy and health assistance to Ukraine. It will be up and running as of next week – and opened to any third country donor”, said the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
The logistics centre will facilitate the transport and storage of donated equipment from third countries and speed up their delivery to Ukraine.
This conference, attended by 46 countries (including the 27 EU countries) and international organisations, was designed “to help the resistance of the Ukrainian people”, said French President Emmanuel Macron.
In total, pledges of emergency aid and equipment amount to “around €1 billion”, according to French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, speaking at the end of the conference - an overall figure that includes urgent aid already committed and new donations and goods in kind. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, co-organiser of the conference with France, called (via video conference) for “at least 800 million euros from the European energy system” to cover the needs.
The amount of €1.01 billion is broken down as follows: - 415 million for the energy sector; - 25 million for water; - 38 million for food; - 17 million for health; - 22 million for transport; - 493 million to be distributed.
France has announced additional humanitarian aid of €76.5 million (in addition to the 200 million currently being disbursed) for access to energy and electricity (15 million), access to water (5 million), food aid (14 million), health infrastructure (8 million) as well as transport infrastructure, civil security and demining actions.
To better coordinate international assistance, it was decided that a ‘Paris Mechanism’ will build on the EU Civil Protection Mechanism coordinated by the European Commission to respond to requests for assistance from Ukraine (see EUROPE 13065/14).
Since 24 February, the European Commission has allocated €523 million to humanitarian aid programmes for civilians affected by the war in Ukraine (€485 million for Ukraine and €38 million for Moldova) and has delivered 56,500 items of equipment to Ukraine through its Civil Protection Mechanism. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)