EU Aid Chief Suggests Tsunami Donor Conference
Date: 29-Dec-04
Country: BELGIUM
Louis Michel, the European Union Commissioner responsible for humanitarian aid, cautioned that any delay between emergency aid and a second phase of badly needed reconstruction help could result in yet more loss of lives.
"The EU has an interest in seeing with its member states how best to organise itself. It is clear such a conference could not go ahead without close cooperation with the United Nations and possibly other donors," Michel told a news briefing.
"I am very anxious about the linkage between the emergency phase and the second phase of rehabilitation and reconstruction. If there is a gap between the two phases, I think it will have catastrophic consequences," he said.
As the death toll from Sunday's tsunami pushed past 50,000, governments and aid agencies began turning their attention to the millions made homeless by the disaster and to the threat of disease from thousands of unburied corpses.
In Geneva, a top expert for the UN World Health Organisation warned that disease could ultimately kill as many in the Indian Ocean region as died in the weekend tsunami sparked by a magnitude 9.0 undersea earthquake.
Michel said the EU would be "right at the top of the table of donors", adding it was ready to release up to 30 million euros ($41 million) on top of an initial 3 million euros already allocated to the International Federation of the Red Cross.
Of the extra funds, 10 million euros was available now for India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, and a further 10 million for Indonesia once the government had come forward to define its needs. The remainder would be allocated to other countries.
The Commission, the executive arm of the EU, has its own budget for aid separate from that offered by its 25 member states, many of which have made donations of their own.
The Netherlands has pledged 2 million euros to a Red Cross-Red Crescent appeal while Germany and Spain have both earmarked 1 million euros each in emergency aid. Others have promised help ranging from the offer of medical teams to military planes to fly in relief equipment.
