Debate: Humanitarian situation in Ethiopia
Date: THURSDAY, 11 FEBRUARY 2021
Speaker: Jutta Urpilainen
Language: EN

Firstly, as I already told you in my introduction, we decided to postpone the disbursement of three budget support payments. The total amount of that is EUR 88.5 million. Secondly, as I described, we have supported the refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities through the implementation of our programmes. In addition to that, we have also created the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), which amounts to EUR 50 million, in order to support the poorest food insecure households, and, as I told you, we also decided to give additional support to Sudan and the Sudanese Government because at the moment they are hosting a huge number of Ethiopian refugees.  Fourthly, of course, we believe, in political dialogue. We are politicians. We understand that, even though we have different opinions and disagreements, we need to have a dialogue. That’s why we mandated the Foreign Minister of Finland, Pekka Haavisto, to make a mission to Ethiopia and have a dialogue with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, but also with the Government.  Some MEPs asked for concrete examples of what the EU is doing to help. Just to give you a couple of those examples, the EU-funded humanitarian action in Ethiopia focuses on addressing the most urgent humanitarian needs. Last year, in 2020, the EU provided over EUR 63 million to humanitarian projects in Ethiopia, including EUR 18.18 million for the Tigray crisis and its spillover effects in other regions of Ethiopia, as well as EUR 6 million in additional funding for the Ethiopian refugees in Sudan. With the additional funding allocated for the Tigray crisis, the Commission’s humanitarian partners - the United Nations, NGOs and the Red Cross for instance - are notably enhancing their emergency response capacity with the focus on health, shelter and non-food items, the nutrition and protection sectors, and particular attention is given to IDPs and Eritrean refugees. In parallel, the EU is monitoring - and this is the important part - very closely the situation, notably through the humanitarian aid partners and through a dedicated field mission, and another mission will be conducted with Denmark, Sweden and the Czech Republic at the technical level this week. So, since the start of the conflict, the EU has been at the forefront of humanitarian advocacy and has been praised for its principled stance on the Tigray crisis.  Well, what shall we do now? The EU will definitely continue to act on its concerns by calling for an end to the conflict. That’s the most important thing: to end the conflict. We are also pushing for access for humanitarian actors to be guaranteed. We are protecting refugees and internally displaced persons and supporting the work of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission in its investigations into allegations of violence and abuses of human rights and violations of international law.  My last point is - and I think this was also mentioned by some of the MEPs - that of course, if we want to leverage, we need to be able to work as a team. We need to be able to act as a team. This of course means that we need to be able to work together - the Commission, the Parliament, but also the Council and the Member States. And that’s not enough. We also need to engage with the international community, for instance with Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the new US administration, and with other international organisations, and convey a message of unity and the importance of engaging urgently in an inclusive dialogue with the Ethiopian Government.