The EU needs to do more with less aid money, the bloc’s humanitarian aid commissioner Hadja Lahbib said on Wednesday (27 May).
The conclusion, which accompanied an EU Commission paper on the ‘EU’s humanitarian action in a shifting global order’, is hardly a surprise.
Over the past two years, official development assistance budgets have seen the biggest drops since records began, while senior EU officials have increasingly talked about how to ‘leverage’ aid to pursue EU policy goals such as reducing migration.
The EU would “remain a reliable and principled donor in a global aid system under severe pressure”, Lahbib told reporters. But there is a caveat.
“In a ruthless world , we have to ask ‘where does Europe stand’. Europe is choosing a path based on fairness, cooperation and human compassion”.
