The tsunami disaster that struck Indian Ocean seaboards at Christmas two years ago stimulated, as do all such major crises, a great deal of thought about the lessons to be learned. We can all remember both the horrific television images and the worldwide surge of generosity with the massive international intervention of the humanitarian community that some have since deemed excessive. We also remember the initial difficulty of reaching victims, of identifying them, of assessing the most urgent transport and relief coordination needs, and the calls for better early-warning systems. Soon after, the devastating earthquake that struck Pakistan raised similarly crucial issues regarding air transport.

 

There are no miracle solutions in the face of such calamities. But there is an urgent need to improve the effectiveness of our response to natural disasters, and this was the aim of the proposal for a European Civil Protection Force (ECPF) presented to EU Foreign Ministers in May of this year by France’s Michel Barnier at the request of Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel during the Austrian EU presidency, and of Commission President José Manuel Barroso.

 

A former EU Commissioner, Barnier had gained first-hand experience of the tsunami because he was at that time France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. He drew heavily on the tsunami crisis to assess the emergency response means currently available to EU states, and reported that “the added value of this project is obvious and urgent”. Barnier has therefore recommended a transition from multiple national responses to a European coordination of capabilities that he believes would be “less costly and more effective”, while also ensuring “more visibility for the European Union”.

 

As a politician rather than a humanitarian relief specialist, Michel Barnier deliberately intended that the whole project of a European Civil Protection Force should form part of a European political perspective. His project identified seven major risk areas, both inside and outside the European Union, and he has presented 12 proposals spanning a four-year calendar with an annual budget of 100m€.

 

What should we think of such a project? Is it of interest, and what potentially sensitive issues does it raise? What are the possible risks, and what counter-proposals might we perhaps make? For a start, let us look at it from a purely humanitarian point of view, and make an assumption that interventions outside the European Union will take precedence over interventions within it, because the latter would of course come under the control and responsibility of any member state affected.

 

From the standpoint of the victims of a disaster, and setting to one side all political considerations, it is quite clear that a combined European aid effort would always be preferable to the sum of national responses. Efficient coordination would enable a collective response to be tailored to humanitarian needs, with aid allocated better and more quickly. In short, it would optimise the available means. During the Asian tsunami, the large number of aid organisations involved, each conducting its own field assessments, caused delays in implementation of the relief effort. There was even a lack of coordination on the tsunami between various departments of the European Commission.

 

It is, of course, the national authorities in the affected countries, along with the United Nations, that are responsible for the general coordination of aid. But countries that are reeling from a major national disaster are often overwhelmed, at any rate to begin with, and are equally overstretched when faced with the need to deal with a multitude of international organisations that may come rushing in. The United Nations system, which is supposed to liaise with all parties, can also suffer from much the same problem.

 

And this is the drawback of the Barnier proposal. There is a limit to the degree that coordination can address a rescue operation’s problems. One cannot wait until coordination has become perfect, or even just satisfactory, before starting to provide aid to disaster victims. It’s an important point, because in most cases the first few weeks if not days are essential for the survivors of a natural disaster. The sheer muscle of a multinational aid force could be very largely wasted if it loses its ability to react and adapt, or loses its dynamism thanks to the complexity of its own chain of command. This is something we in the humanitarian world experienced in Bosnia with UNPROFOR, and in other United Nations operations. Having said all that, a European Civil Protection Force that has greater combined strength than would EU states’ national contingents, and that at the same time is fast and well coordinated, could genuinely speed up and improve European rescue and aid efforts.

 

Michel Barnier’s project invites a number of further proposals, because it raises more than a few issues. In the first place, it brings into sharp focus the principles of intervention by a future EU force. Civil protection and humanitarian action are very close, yet they are distinctly different especially with regard to relations with political authorities. For humanitarians, the essential founding principles are humanity, impartiality and independence, which are closely tied to the absolute priority of reaching and providing aid to victims without any distinction between them.

 

We at “Solidarités” believe, therefore, that Michel Barnier’s project would do well to be more explicit on this point, especially since he would clearly plan to place the European Civil Protection Force under the authority of any future European Minister of Foreign Affairs. We would, therefore, suggest that this project should refer explicitly to the principles and good practices for humanitarian aid approved in Stockholm in June, 2003 by many of the EU member states as well as by the European Commission.

 

The second issue concerns the strategy for the proposed new European force. The length of its relief interventions will be an important determining factor. We in the NGOs have observed that interventions by civil security forces of EU member countries rarely exceed five to seven weeks, yet regarding the proposed new EU force reference is made in an appended document to periods of between three and six months. This needs to be more precisely defined well in advance of the project being launched so that a broader strategy, including complementary activities and coordination with other parties, can be devised. And although the EU forces’ relations with the United Nations are covered, its relationship with NGOs or organisations like the Red Cross is not clear enough even though it is crucially important. Civil security units have to intervene as quickly as possible, but they must also organise how they will hand over to long-term actors as part of the continuum between emergency aid and reconstruction and development. That’s why we cannot emphasise strongly enough the need for with the NGOs and their European coordination organisation VOICE.

 

Michel Barnier recommends a coordination mechanism between civil protection forces and the Commission’s humanitarian aid specialists in its DG-ECHO that would involve creating a “humanitarian response desk”. ECHO is on many counts an exceptional tool; it is the largest humanitarian aid funding body in the world, a model for complementary action with NGOs, Red Cross organisations and United Nations agencies, and as a funding body that is capable of reacting to emergencies with proven capability and expertise. It is also an organisation that is driven by the same principles and criteria as the humanitarian community at large.

 

Antonio Cavaco, the director of ECHO, has said he is convinced that “both methods of intervention are complementary, whether it be civil protection in certain phases of an emergency, or humanitarian aid in all phases of an emergency”. He rightly adds that these roles must be clarified to maintain the high standard of professional relationships between the intervening parties.

 

This clarification is vital because it would be both difficult and risky to group together in the new EU force organisations of such a different nature. One type works in the very short term, the other in the short and medium term; one type is made up of civil servants who intervene directly and are organised in an almost military fashion, with the other type intervening indirectly in close, contractual partnership with independent civil organisations.

 

For us NGOs, any measure that strengthens the role of DG-ECHO would be positive in terms of future humanitarian actions, while any measure that runs the risk of weakening this role is to be proscribed. We would welcome any debate or dialogue that would yield further progress and improvement.

 

We would, therefore, warn against any risk that ECHO might lose substance or even be dismantled. This organisation has since 1992 been unique and essential on a daily basis to international humanitarian aid, and remains so in over 30 countries. And if the European Civil Protection Force were to draw on ECHO’s budget, which in our opinion is already insufficient, then there would clearly be a serious risk of weakening it.

 

Instead, the new EU force should be granted a budget of €100m through an annual withdrawal of 10% from the European Union Solidarity Fund. At present, though, the plan appears to be that the ECPF’s funding should be topped up from ECHO’s budget for external actions. This is a point that causes us serious concern, as we believe that ECHO’s current budget is already inadequate. Although an emergency reserve fund of €221m exists, this fund has been called upon four times in the last five years, underlining the chronic tightness of the ECHO budget.

 

That’s also why we support the position of the EU Commissioner for humanitarian and development aid, Louis Michel, when he declared that Europe must do more and suggested the creation of Millennium Humanitarian Goals with very specific goals and an increase in resources of €2bn a year.

 

So where do matters now stand? In January of this year, France’s President Jacques Chirac proposed the creation of the new European force that Michel Barnier then fleshed out in greater detail. Michel Barnier’s project falls within the global crisis response mechanism – EU-CCA (EU Emergency and crisis coordination arrangements) – created at the initiative of the European Commission in November 2004 and which has led to the creation of groups specialised according to the type of crisis, among them the group concerned with natural disasters. These groups are based in Brussels and became operational on July 1 of this year.

The most difficult question yet to be addressed is how to position Michel Barnier’s project from a political standpoint. The lack of a European Constitution is one restraint, as is the diversity of viewpoints held by various member states. Mediterranean countries like Spain, Italy, Portugal, Malta and Cyprus are in favour of the project, while others like Slovenia, Belgium, Luxembourg and France are its driving forces. But some Nordic countries like Denmark, Sweden and Finland appear to prefer acting within the UN framework. Britain has also been somewhat reserved about reinforcing the community aspect of the EU, and in Germany the Länder still jealously guard their own key roles in matters of civil protection.

There is also a secondary concern amongst some European governments about the coordination of EU and NATO initiatives. In general, countries favourable to the ECPF project want Europe to have more initiative and visibility, whereas countries like Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden and Poland have been questioning how it would fit with NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC).

But if at present it will be difficult to obtain unanimity on the ECPF’s future, it should nevertheless be possible to move forward on the basis of “stronger cooperation” between at least eight countries. The Austrian Presidency’s closing speech at the end of the mid-June European Council proposed a cautious step by step approach, pointing to the need for a common inventory of civil protection units, the assessment and coordination of military transport resources and the drafting of a proposal for reciprocal consular support services. Javier Solana is due to report back to EU heads of government at their December summit in the closing stages of the Finnish Presidency.  

Coming as I do from the humanitarian aid sector, I wonder whether the next great natural disaster will sooner or later see the EU and its member states provide a better response than in the past to the victims’ emergency needs. And public opinion, both within Europe and around the world, will be able to judge whether practice matches theory when it comes to that core European value, solidarity.