Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-14-Speech-2-272"
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"en.20041214.14.2-272"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, over the last few decades, humanitarian aid workers have operated in insecure and unpredictable conditions. I am sure we are all aware that the risks they run in order to provide aid in unstable situations have increased considerably. Take the examples of Iraq, Côte d'Ivoire and Darfur in particular. Relief workers have very often, too often in fact, come under attack from the armed forces and militias.
Given the difficult conditions in which the Commission, through ECHO, the Humanitarian Aid Office, and its partners, is working, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get material aid and assistance to those who are suffering. It also has to be said that the growing involvement in humanitarian activities of players who are not strictly humanitarian, such as the military, has sometimes resulted in roles becoming confused, with the consequent risks for the safety of relief workers.
In order to preserve the existence of a humanitarian space and, consequently, to ensure that aid and equipment reaches the victims, the Commission’s decisions are based on humanitarian values and principles and on a desire to provide quality assistance through its partnership with humanitarian organisations. In accordance with the Council’s rules on humanitarian aid, the Commission’s decisions are therefore dictated solely by basic humanitarian needs and principles, namely neutrality, impartiality and independence. Observance of these principles should help to protect relief workers and give them access to victims in cases of conflict.
In order to maintain the distinction between the roles of the military and of relief workers, the Commission supports the key role of civilian organisations when implementing humanitarian measures in situations where military capacity and resources are used. To do so, it maintains that such recourse must comply with the guidelines for the use of army and civil defence resources in complex emergency humanitarian aid operations conducted by the United Nations.
ECHO is not an operational organisation. Its task is to finance the coordinated provision of humanitarian aid through partner organisations, for example international NGOs, other international organisations or the United Nations. The quality and effectiveness of ECHO’s aid depend very much on its partners’ professional abilities. All organisations signing the partnership agreement by virtue of which they work with ECHO therefore commit themselves to upholding the fundamental humanitarian values and principles I have just mentioned.
The basic objective of humanitarian aid is neither to prevent nor to resolve conflicts, but to alleviate the human suffering they cause. In consultation with other sponsors and partners, ECHO is actively looking for ways of tackling the growing problems of access to victims and the safety of relief workers, with the aim of improving the situation in that regard.
Governments, armed forces and non-state players need to be made more aware of their obligations under international humanitarian law. That law states that the parties to a conflict must facilitate the passage of aid convoys and the provision of neutral assistance to civilians affected by a conflict. To give a real-life example of this principle, when I went to Sudan, to Darfur to be more precise, I reminded the government authorities and the rebels that it was absolutely essential that they allow international humanitarian organisations free access to the victims and the people in need of help. That is a fundamental principle and, in quoting that example, I am also stressing the importance of the political dialogue between the Commission and those countries’ authorities."@en1
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