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Belgian Report Notes UK's Straw Declined to Grant "EU Aid" to US

Posted on: Tuesday, 6 September 2005, 09:00 CDT

Text of report by Bernard Bulcke: "No 'EU' aid for United States" by Belgian newspaper De Standaard website on 6 September

Brussels: Ten Belgian logistics experts - nine military officers and one member of the Belgian Red Cross - left for the United States on Monday [5 September] morning to assist the US Red Cross within the scope of emergency aid operations in the wake of the Katrina hurricane. Twelve EU member states and Romania have already sent aid, but this is being done merely on a individual basis. These efforts involve neither "EU" aid, nor EU money.

Altogether, the Red Cross is sending 80 logistics experts from 10 countries to hurricane-struck regions. Teams from the Mexican, Canadian and British Red Cross organizations have already arrived. Half of the 10 Belgians will go to Baton Rouge in Louisiana; the other half to Montgomery in Alabama.

The European aid was offered in reaction to an official US request for aid that came in on Sunday morning. The United States did not submit this request to the EU Commission, but to the United Kingdom, the current EU duty president. All the EU Commission is doing is handling the practical coordination via the Monitoring and Information Centre of the EU Commission's Environment Directorate.

The United States has sent a list of items needed. The Commission is processing this list. A European coordinator is soon to depart to the disaster-struck regions. The UK, Italy and Germany have sent a plane with emergency supplies; Greece has sent two cruise ships; and a Dutch frigate is supplying potable water.

It is striking that this aid will not be labelled as EU aid. The EU has not allocated a budget either. The member states themselves will have to bear all the costs.

At last week's informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Newport, Ireland, among other countries, suggested organizing a joint EU aid operation. UK Minister Jack Straw turned down this proposal for rather vague reasons - he "inarticulately" mumbled that India might be upset because it had received no EU aid when the country was struck by floods. "It was clear that he did not intend to grasp this opportunity to give the EU more visibility," a senior official who attended the meeting said. Many member states, however, are requesting this in the wake of the negative referendums on the European constitution in the Netherlands and France.

Source: BBC Monitoring European

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