EU aid chief vows not to neglect other crises amid Ukraine needs

The European Union will not pull funds from other crises around the world as it responds to the escalating conflict in Ukraine, the bloc’s crisis aid commissioner said Tuesday.

Speaking to members of the European Parliament in Brussels, Janez Lenarčič said the €90 million ($100 million) that the European Commission pledged toward the United Nations’ so-called flash appeal for $1.7 billion was all “fresh funding.”

“We have not taken any funding from any other humanitarian programs that we are funding all over the world … and we will continue with this approach,” the Slovenian told MEPs. The EU has allocated more than €193 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine since 2014, according to a commission press release.

Lenarčič also urged MEPs to lobby EU governments to respond generously to the U.N. appeal, which was released Tuesday and seeks to raise $1.1 billion to help 6 million people inside Ukraine for an initial three months, plus more than $550 million to help countries in the region shelter people who have fled the conflict.

After announcing Sunday that it would spend €450 million on lethal equipment for Ukraine and €50 million on nonlethal aid, such as fuel, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged a further €500 million Tuesday “to deal with the humanitarian consequences of this tragic war, both in the country and for the refugees.”

The commission had been preparing for various scenarios since December in case Russia launched new attacks on Ukraine, Lenarčič said. But the current situation — with civilians, including those in major cities, under heavy bombardment — is the worst possible outcome, because the entire country is under attack, he added.

Lenarčič told Devex after the Parliament hearing that “hundreds” of humanitarian workers were on the ground in Ukraine, mostly in the Donbas region — where a conflict has been ongoing since 2014 — but also Kyiv and Kharkiv. Asked which humanitarian groups were present in the country, Lenarčič cited U.N. agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as some international NGOs.

Lenarčič told Devex that humanitarians were working with Russian military commanders to prevent aid workers from being bombed. However, he said experience sharing coordinates with Russians was “mixed,” with infrastructure previously bombed in Syria the day after its location was provided.

The EU has belied its reputation for slow, cautious decision-making in foreign policy in recent days, agreeing a range of measures to sanction Russia, including blocking the Russian central bank’s access to over $600 billion in foreign currency reserves — a move that some experts say could cause the country’s financial system to collapse.

It is “quite possible” that the sanctions’ severity could create humanitarian needs in Russia itself, Lenarčič told Devex, but he added that humanitarian exemptions would allow assistance to be provided in any case.

“We believe that there won’t be humanitarian needs because of these sanctions because they are well calibrated, but yes they will affect the Russian economy,” Lenarčič said, adding that there is a difference between poverty and a humanitarian crisis. “What we wanted to ensure is that sanctions would not hamper humanitarian work wherever and whenever it is needed, and we were able to do that.”

Update, March 2, 2022: This article has been updated to clarify the amount of nonlethal aid the EU agreed to provide.