Why does the EU need a consensus on humanitarian aid?
Humanitarian actors today face a number of specific challenges. The impact of humanitarian disasters – both man-made and natural disasters – is nowadays more severe and their frequency is increasing. These trends are linked to climate change, the changing nature of conflict, extreme poverty and problems of poor governance/failed states. Civilians nearly always suffer most. There is an increasing tendency for humanitarian and international law to be ignored or openly violated. Encroachments on the ‘humanitarian space’ hinder access to vulnerable populations and threaten the safety of humanitarian aid workers. Other actors, not necessarily “humanitarian”, but with a mandate to “assist”, are becoming involved. The environment for delivering humanitarian aid to people in need is thus ever more challenging – Darfur and Iraq are two examples. The Commission believes it is time to strengthen the humanitarian action of the EU (undertaken by both the Commission and Member States) through an exp
