I appreciate your invitation to discuss the important topic of the new EU Humanitarian Aid Communication. And I am grateful for this Committees longstanding support to EU humanitarian aid.
We all know the scale of the challenges facing the humanitarian system today. Global instability has risen, crises have multiplied, and those responsible have failed to resolve them.
As a result, fragility has increased sharply and humanitarian needs have grown everywhere.
These are not only humanitarian and political crises. Climate change is also hitting hard. During my recent mission to Latin America, we signed a Preparedness Administrative Agreement with the region. In Jamaica, I saw firsthand the devastation provoked by Hurricane Melissa.
I would like to warmly thank the DEVE Committee humanitarian rapporteur, Leire Pajin, who joined us for this mission.
I would like to share some figures with you: today more than 300 million need humanitarian aid. But according to OCHAs Global Humanitarian Overview 2025, the world would need over USD 47 billion dollars only to provide life-saving aid to 190 million people of this total.
Yet the funding gap is the largest ever recorded, and funding has dropped sharply compared to last year. In this dramatic context, the humanitarian system is undergoing major reforms and extreme prioritisation. UN Emergency Response Coordinator Tom Fletcher asks us to focus on the lifesaving needs of only 115 million people at the highest risk, but even this will stretch the system to its limits.
This necessary prioritisation means that almost 200 million people will be left without the assistance they need simply because the money is not there. This sobering reality calls for political action, and it is with this in mind that I will lead the preparation of a new Communication on Humanitarian Aid.
As Europeans, we have a strong commitment to humanitarian aid and humanitarian principles. This Communication must remind Europeans, and our partners as well, of this commitment through concrete policy action because the root causes of this crisis are not only about budgets.
In recent years, violations of International Humanitarian Law, including attacks on children and hospitals, have skyrocketed.
In Ukraine alone, around 5,500 attacks on civilian infrastructure were reported between 2022 and 2024. Last year was the deadliest year ever for humanitarian aid workers — and the numbers are still rising.
The war in Sudan has become one of the deadliest for aid workers anywhere in the world. From April 2023 to August 2025, more than 120 humanitarian workers were killed, and many more since then, almost all of them Sudanese. Gaza became a graveyard for tens of thousands of civilians, including humanitarian workers, with over 560 humanitarian workers killed since the start of the war.
The spread of disinformation and hate speech targeting humanitarian organisations in many conflicts is making this even worse. Most worrying of all, attacks on the legitimacy of the humanitarian system itself, and on the values it stands for, are increasing. All of this demands a strong EU response. We must remain a principled and reliable donor, a defender of our core values, and a strong supporter of the multilateral humanitarian system.
Our Humanitarian Communication will be built on three pillars: Protection, Performance, and Partnering.
First, protection. For all the reasons I mentioned, it is more important than ever to show our strong support to the respect of International Humanitarian Law and humanitarian principles. We are working to strengthen humanitarian diplomacy, to improve the protection of humanitarian workers, especially local responders, children, and protection from gender-based violence.
Second, performance. With funding cuts, we must improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our response. The funding gap has also exposed the fragmentation and inefficiencies in coordination among humanitarian actors, often driven by competition for resources instead of cooperation. Take the humanitarian supply chain, the backbone of any operation, separate procurement pipelines or agency-specific warehouses raise costs and are a major opportunity for efficiency gains.
We are looking at ways to be more efficient, through joint supply chain services, joint procurement, better digital tools, more cash assistance, and improved quality of funding. We will also step up localisation: embedding the response in local realities, empowering local responders, and matching support with community needs.
We will deliver on our roadmap for localisation, which I announced at the European Humanitarian Forum in May to ensure that 25% of all EU humanitarian funding is delivered as directly as possible to local partners by 2027, which is double compared to today. We will promote a response that is “as local as possible, as international as necessary”.
The third area of focus is partnering. Developing an integrated EU response to fragility will be at the heart of this work, a top priority for me, as it is for you. According to OECD, over 70% of people worldwide living in extreme poverty live in fragile countries or contexts. It is clear we cannot possibly resolve humanitarian crises or achieve sustainable development without tackling fragility.
We need to reduce humanitarian needs by taking a more integrated approach to fragility, from root causes, to transitions, to sustainable solutions. This means strengthening partnerships with development donors, development banks, international financial institutions, private sector, and philanthropies.
These partnerships are important among the EUs own policies and services to start with, but they must also go beyond. We need new ways of working and innovative solutions. That is why I have built ties with EIB President Nadia Calvino and the Managing Director of the Word Economic Forum Sheba Crocker to boost the engagement with development banks, the private sector, and other important actors in jointly responding to fragility.
Tomorrow I will also meet with the representatives of major European philanthropies, who are ready to partner with us. To make a success of this, we must take a Team Europe approach.
I will work with our Member States to position the EU as a leading donor and a key shaper of a strong humanitarian system.
The Communication will be accompanied by three Staff Working Documents: on humanitarian diplomacy, on strategic humanitarian supply chain, and on an integrated EU approach to fragility. This will show our commitment, raise the visibility of the issues, and set out more concretely how we will put these priorities into action.
The timing is right. Adoption is planned for the second quarter of 2026. It will allow us to respond to the rapidly evolving humanitarian landscape, including the reform led by Tom Fletcher. This will also position the EU as a principled, responsible, and leading donor.
Allow me to end with a word on the EU humanitarian funding and approach in the next MFF. In July, the Commission presented the ambitious new Global Europe instrument, with a proposed €25 billion dedicated to humanitarian aid. Crucially, under the MFF proposal, humanitarian aid will continue to be delivered under the rules and procedures of the existing Humanitarian Aid Regulation.
This is essential to preserve the humanitarian principles and independence guaranteed by this Regulation, while continuing to ensure the speed and agility to address rapidly growing needs.
The Global Europe architecture will also strengthen synergies between all our external instruments and policies, a key step to improve the humanitarian-development-peace nexus and better address the growing fragility around the world.
I therefore hope the DEVE Committee and the European Parliament will help defend the MFF Global Europe proposal.
As we begin the consultation process for the Communication, I would like to hear from you so your views can be taken into account. Let us join forces to deliver this ambitious agenda.
