With evidence growing that the humanitarian disaster in Haiti was the worst since the Asian tsunami five years ago, and one of the worst in generations, the European Union said it would give more than 400 million euros ($575 million) in immediate and long-term aid to Haiti in the wake of its devastating earthquake. At the same time, the bloc vowed to join efforts to fight looting in the country as member states gave a “positive” response to United Nations calls for paramilitary help.
EU President Herman Van Rompuy announced that an EU summit planned for February 11 would discuss Europe’s reaction to the quake, as well as economic and climate-change issues. “Reconstruction efforts and EU support for the proposed international conference for Haiti will be part of our discussion,” Van Rompuy said in a statement.
EU foreign and development ministers and top officials from the European Commission, the EU’s executive, met in a bid to coordinate the bloc’s reaction to the quake, although it came a week after the disaster struck and as Haitians were begging for more immediate assistance. “We wanted to send a signal that we are there and committed as the EU,” Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said. At the meeting, the commission pledged 30 million euros in immediate emergency aid to Haiti for support such as medical help, water purification and shelter. EU member states together pledged 92 million euros on top of that sum. “We have taken swift action ... This is the beginning of what we are going to do to contribute to Haiti,” said the EU’s Foreign Policy director, Catherine Ashton, who both represents EU member states and is Vice-President of the Commission. Britain trebled its offer of emergency aid to 20 million pounds ($32 million) while Germany quintupled its aid to 7.5 million euros, the Czech Republic quadrupled its offer to 20 million koruny ($1.1 million) and France pledged 10 million euros. The Brussels-based commission also pledged 107 million euros to help begin the long process of rebuilding Haiti’s infrastructure and to start re-housing the up to three million people who are estimated to have lost their homes, EU Aid Commissioner Karel De Gucht said. In the longer term, the commission will offer a further 200 million euros to carry on the process of putting Haiti’s economy back on its feet, he said.

Law and order too
EU member states also “expressed a desire to contribute” to a paramilitary police force which the UN has informally requested to help restore order in the country, but are waiting for formal confirmation of the summons, Moratinos said. Together, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Romania maintain a standing EU paramilitary force, which is designed to intervene in world hotspots. Those countries had a “positive attitude” towards deploying in Haiti, Moratinos said. The EU’s 27 states have already paid out over 20 million euros in aid to the earthquake-shaken Caribbean nation, but Haiti’s infrastructure has been so badly damaged that only minimal amounts are getting through. “The question is getting the aid from the airport to Port-au- Prince and the surrounding area. The big logistical questions are about getting the roads open, being able to drop aid and to organize aid,” Ashton said. “There are real issues at the airport, the runway is overcrowded and there are real issues about getting planes onto the ground,” she said. Ashton said she telephoned US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and discussed with Clinton discuss relief efforts and talks on an international donors’ conference. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner saying it was expected on January 25 in Montreal. “There is no doubt that there is going to be a conference, and the EU will be involved,” Ashton said.

EU needs planning
At the European Parliament, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE,) pushed for better EU coordination in tragedies. “The earthquake which has struck Haiti is a test for the capacity of Europe to act outside its borders. Nonetheless this catastrophe has seen a humanitarian response based on a national level. Each Member State is sending its own personnel, its own sniffer dogs, planes etc. This tragedy confronts us once again with the lack of European coordination in the face of humanitarian crises.”
The group called on the EU to re-launch EUR-FAST, which allows the European Union to consolidate civilian and military resources to dispatch within 24 hours and said it would be possible through the creation of a permanent coordination centre which could be activated within two hours following a humanitarian catastrophe with access to permanent stocks of humanitarian aid equipment and the capabilities to coordinate the transport equipment made available by Member States.
ALDE group Leader Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium said: “The addition of organized individual responses in an emergency situation will never match a planned and coordinated European response. Our citizens will not understand why we do not put in place an instrument that will allow us to intervene in an efficient and coordinated way.” MEP Louis Michel of Belgium, President of Parliament’s delegation for relations with the African-Caribbean-Pacific countries said that “The EU, collectively with the 27 Member States, represents the world’s largest overseas aid donor, both for humanitarian relief and development. We have a vast panoply of instruments at our disposal to respond to emergencies and reconstruction efforts. But as long as national reflexes remain, we will never unfortunately be able to enlist the full benefits of collective action.” MEP Charles Goerens of Luxembourg, ALDE coordinator in the development committee, added that “Everyone is ready to assist in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster. But it is also important to coordinate international relief efforts on the ground. The hour of truth however will come when the Haitian catastrophe no longer appears on our TV screens. It is up to the EU to ensure that thereafter Haiti can rely on the same degree of solidarity as in the first days following the earthquake.”