The current preoccupation with how visible the EU is in Haiti is utterly unpleasant. Now, in the middle of such human misery and loss, is not the time to be worried about whether EU helpers are as noticed as those from the US. What matters is that Haitians get aid, not whether the European Union gets visibility for its buck.
Yet the issue is gathering legs. Catherine Ashton’s non-appearance on the devastated island was the springboard for the discontent. She first was criticized by MEPs for not going there. Then French officials took up the cudgels. Internal market commissioner-to-be Michel Barnier, according to the widely-read Coulisses de Bruxelles, let it be known that he was on the spot directly after the Tsunami struck in 2004.
The issue hung heavily over the EU meeting of foreign ministers on Monday, which Ashton was chairing for the first time.
“What was certainly missing was (EU) visibility right away, a flag right away, EU police badges next to the US ones,” France’s European Affairs Minister Pierre Lellouche said after the meeting.
Until then it was mainly French grumbling. (Barnier, it should be noted, is smarting because a report he drew up looking at improving the EU’s crisis response following the Tsunami experience was never taken up. The report devoted much ink to the importance of being able to see the EU’s 12 golden stars in areas in need of disaster relief.)
But yesterday the European Commission jumped on the bandwagon. Once it is up and running, the new commission will prepare “proposals to improve further the EU’s crisis response capability,” said a spokesperson. This will allow the European Union to benefit from a “higher visibility” for its relief efforts, she added.
It is unclear how much of the “visibility” rhetoric has to do with simple dislike of Ashton. Her less-than-stellar start was, in my opinion, entirely predictable given the size of her new job and the way she came to it. But it is grist to mill of those who were hostile to her from the very beginning. She has now been driven to defend her Haiti decisions, giving an interview to French paper Le Figaro.
In any case, it does not become the EU – justifiably proud of it donor reputation – to use the ongoing Haiti misery for point scoring against Ashton or as a convenient vehicle for boosting a bit of hitherto dormant political will for its crisis response unit.
#1 by damien on January 28, 2010 - 10:58 pm
I believe Ashton was right not to go to Halti and be photographed in order to show the world that the ‘EU’ cared.
What is important is that aid is given in a way that helps Halti in its immediate crisis and in the longer term, in its recovery and rebuilding.
It is a sad day for EU that some politicans long for a crisis( of great human suffering) to play political games.
Who cares who gives the aid, as long as its not strings attached(dollar aid) or spent foolishly.
In any case, I dont think the French and indeed the Americans will gain redemption from the people of Halti becuase some guy wears USAID or French Aid t-shirt.
The people of Halti will remember for a long time why and who made them ‘the poorest people in the Western World’. I think they poor people will instantly ‘recognise’ the visible.
#2 by damien on January 28, 2010 - 11:00 pm
When Mr President, looks at the gold in the Verseilles Palace, let him read an article in the Irish Times that estimated the ‘compensation’ Halti paid to France is 20 Billion euro in today’s money.
#3 by Paul DS on January 29, 2010 - 12:43 am
I was glad Catherine Ashton wasn’t there for a “photo-op” at the airport. I thought the 3 US Presidents giving their joint statements a bit much.
#4 by Nelleke on January 29, 2010 - 2:26 am
For those EU foreign ministers worried about the EU’s “lack of visability” in Haiti, they shouldn’t worry. The response in Haiti has been an embarrassment. Would the EU have wanted to be highly visible after Katrina hit New Orleans? I think not and, as far as I can tell, this is not any better.
#5 by Jean-Baptiste Perrin on February 1, 2010 - 10:32 am
I believe that Haitian, in their terrible ordeal, will first think about surviving. When the dust is cleared and the bodies buried, they will most probably remember who actually helped them on the ground, not the clowns doing their show on their devastated airport. Even less the other morons far in Europe, fighting about this or that. And on the ground, we could all see that French, Dutch, English or Turkish teams (in a word, European ones) were working well along US, Israeli, Jordanian or Brazilian ones. They saved lives, fed people, managed to limit the looting and so on. That’s what Haitian will remember. The rest is a non event.