WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3189/98 by Arthur NEWENS to the Commission. Humanitarian aid to the Kurdish population of Iraqi Kurdistan
Date: 1998-10-27
Institutions: European Parliament, NEWENS
Subjects: Iraq, Kurdistan question, financial aid, food aid, humanitarian aid, petroleum

28.6.1999

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 182/51

(1999/C 182/062)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3189/98

by Arthur Newens (PSE) to the Commission

(27 October 1998)

Subject: Humanitarian aid to the Kurdish population of Iraqi Kurdistan

Would the Commission give details of the different forms of EU aid supplied to the Kurdish population of Iraqi
Kurdistan on a yearly basis since the establishment of the safe havens and show how this compares with aid
provided by other donors?

Answer given by Mrs Bonino on behalf of the Commission

(11 December 1998)

Since 1991, the Community has been the major supplier of humanitarian aid to Iraq to the sum of
ECU 240 million. The humanitarian response has been aimed at all vulnerable groups.

In 1991, before the creation of the Commission’s European Community humanitarian office (ECHO), an
allocation of ECU 111,5 million was made for Iraq (refugees and displaced people ECU 94,0 million; conflict
in Iraq ECU 5,0 million; Gulf war ECU 12,5 million). Since 1992 the overall ECHO contributions to Iraq have
been ECU 116,17 million (ECU 87,03 million for the north and ECU 29,14 million for the centre and south).
A further ECU 13 million have been almost entirely allocated to the north.

The main source of humanitarian aid is the oil-for-food programme, based on the United Nations Security
Council (UNSC) resolution No 986/1995, allowing for the sale of oil to a value of 2 000 million US dollars
(USD) for a 180 day period. Of this sum USD 1 320 million are mobilised for humanitarian aid,
USD 260 million for Northern Iraq (13 %) and USD 1 060 million for the centre and the south (53 %). The
remaining USD 780 million pays for the United Nations operation in Iraq and Gulf War reparations (34 %).
The first proceeds of oil sales were received on 15 January 1997 into the United Nations Iraq escrow account.
As of 3 June 1998 under the new UNSC resolution No 1153, the amount of oil allowed to be sold was
increased to USD 5 260 million.

With an allocation of USD 5 256 million the oil-for-food deal provides aid worth USD 455 per capita per
annum in the north (population 3 million) and USD 293 in the centre and south (population 19 million).

(1999/C 182/063)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3198/98

by Honório Novo (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(27 October 1998)

Subject: Replies to the EU fisheries sector inquiry

It is public knowledge that some months ago, the Commission decided to carry out an inquiry involving
various trade union and employers’ organisations within the European Union’s fisheries sector. Inter alia, the
purpose of the inquiry was to sound out the EU’s fishery sector on the policy guidelines to be followed from
2002 by the Common Fisheries Policy.

At the end of June, during a seminar held in Lisbon as part of Expo 98, the Commission’s Director-General for
Fisheries claimed that the replies received so far indicated strongly that the Member States wished to uphold
their sovereign rights to access to fishery resources within their own territorial waters within a 12-mile
exclusion zone, and even wished to extend the exclusion zone still further.