1 Stakes and Challenges of EU Response to Global Emergencies: An EU Policy Perspective

Abstract

Europe's capacity to respond to disasters both inside and outside its borders has, as often in the development of the EU, been built up incrementally and in response to very concrete challenges. The EU's humanitarian aid policy started in earnest in 1992, prompted by a small number of major crises notably in former Yugoslavia, in the Great Lakes and in Iraqi Kurdistan. The EU's emergency relief assistance is certainly an important one, because it addresses the immediate human cost of crisis and it is in many cases the first, and often the only, part of the EU response present on the ground from the first few days or even hours after a disaster. 'Global' emergencies have in recent years moved dramatically up the EU's agenda. Particularly since the Haiti earthquake, humanitarian aid and disaster response are no longer marginal 'niche' areas of EU activity. Keywords: crisis; disaster response; EU's agenda; EU's emergency relief assistance; EU's humanitarian aid policy; global emergencies