Anders Vistisen (ID). – Fru formand! Så står vi her igen. Endnu engang har man krævet flere penge til nødhjælp, til humanitært arbejde. På trods af at danske skatteydere og europæiske skatteydere i generationer har betalt uden at se en forbedring. Det værste er, at en stor del af disse penge skal dirigeres igennem såkaldte NGO'er, foreninger, der påstår, at de ikke har noget med lande at gøre, men for de flestes vedkommende får den største del af deres finansielle muligheder og deres budgetter fra netop nationalstaterne, samtidig med at de ofte har en radikaliseret og venstreorienteret ideologi, som de forsøger at presse ned over konflikterne. Vi ser det aktuelt i konflikten i Gaza, hvor en række NGO’er fra Læger uden Grænser til Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke og Røde Kors forsøger at proppe en ideologisk fortolkning af krigen ned i halsen på de selv samme skatteydere, der er tvunget til at finansiere deres arbejde. Om de er enige med dem eller ej. Hvis man gerne vil være NGO, så sige nej tak til statens penge, prøv at fundraise dem selv, og se hvor mange der er enig i jeres budskaber.
Clare Daly (The Left). – Madam President, I voted for this report because I believe that an improved approach to humanitarian aid is, in fact, badly needed. We see this, in particular, as the reports emerge of the Commission blocking necessary aid to Palestinian organisations, killing them with paperwork even as the humanitarian disaster gets worse there. Talk of monitoring their social media posts, insinuating that legitimate criticisms of Zionist Israel is the same as anti-Semitism, which of course it isn’t.
I also believe that forgotten crises need to be remembered. I particularly want to put on record the appalling devastation being experienced by the people of Afghanistan two years after the US withdrawal. The country is as unstable as it was. Their bank assets are still frozen and taken by the West. We had a recent earthquake where 3000 people died and it didn’t even get a mention in the newspaper. Over a million Afghans are being expelled from Pakistan with nowhere to go. How is this people supposed to expect to face a deadly winter? USD400 million needed by the World Food Bank, and not a fraction of that money coming before them.
Mick Wallace (The Left). – Madam President, this report on humanitarian aid strategy talks about increasing aid, preventive measures on conflict and the climate crisis, and ensuring sanctions do not hinder aid provision.
The sad truth is the EU and its allies are barrelling along in the opposite direction. NATO occupied and bombed Afghanistan for 20 years, flooding the place with weapons, then ran away with 7 billion in central bank funds. Millions are attempting to flee due to food insecurity, approaching famine conditions, breakdown of the economy and natural disasters. And still, the West refuses to lift the crippling sanctions that are the main drivers of the crisis.
Millions flee to Iran, but we’re sanctioning them to death as well. What about Yemen, where EU Member States took part in a genocidal war that used famine as a weapon? It’s almost obscene for the EU to talk about innovative aid strategies when our like-minded partners, the US, are revealing the coordinates of aid groups in Gaza so Israel can bomb them, and now the Commission has sanctioned them, so they’ll never be able to rebuild. Let’s get real.