Publicly, the European Commission says it “cannot fill the gap” as the United States leaves its role as the Western world’s top donor of foreign aid. But behind-the-scenes internal analysis from earlier this year, seen by Devex, shows Europe’s top civil servants discussing which U.S. funding cuts will most affect the European Union, assessing the possibility for the EU to fill at least some needs, and even sketching out how to go about it.
In early February, the commission’s secretary-general, Ilze Juhansone, asked departments from the EU executive to identify which actions affected by the U.S. funding retreat were vital for EU interests. In response, the director-general of the commission’s development department, Koen Doens, identified three key topics: health, migration, and fragility.
In a draft reply to Juhansone dated mid-February — after the initial aid freeze but before the Trump administration confirmed it would cut 83% of USAID’s programs — Doens wrote that global health has long been a top U.S. priority. He cited its work on disaster relief, HIV/AIDS prevention, combatting public health threats such as pandemic influenza, and funding for initiatives such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.