Committee on Development Ordinary meeting

Name: Committee on Development Ordinary meeting
Uploaded: 2026-06-03T07:45:00+00:00
Duration: 8141 s

07:09 - 32:55

Robert Biedroń

Abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment three, who is in favour? Who is against? Abstentions, I need to check that, I open the vote.

I close the vote. And it's clearly adopted. Compromise amendment four, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, adopted.

Amendment 201, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, rejected. Amendment 202, who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions, rejected. Amendment 203, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, adopted. Amendment 204, who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions, rejected. Amendment 206, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, rejected.

Amendment 205, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment five, who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment six, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment seven, who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment eight, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, adopted.

Compromise amendment nine, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment 10, who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions, adopted. Amendment 266, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, rejected. Amendment 267, who is in favor?

Amendment 269, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, rejected. Amendment 270, who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions, rejected. Amendment 271, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, rejected. Amendment 272, who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions, rejected. Amendment 273, who is against? I just check if you follow, eh. Who is against?

Who is in favor? Abstentions, rejected. Just checking if you are following, eh. 274, who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions, rejected. 275, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, rejected. Compromise amendment 11, who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions, adopted. Amendment 281, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, rejected.

282, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, rejected. Amendment 283, who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions, adopted. Amendment 284, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, I need to check that I open the vote. I close the vote.

Then it's rejected. Amendment 285, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, I need to check again, I open the vote. One missing, I close the vote.

It's adopted. Amendment 286, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, I need to check, I open the vote. One missing, I close the vote.

And it's adopted. Amendment 21, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, rejected. Amendment 22, who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions, I need to check this, I open the vote. And that's clear. I close the vote and it's rejected, thank you. Amendment 23, who is in favor?

Amendment 25, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions, rejected. Amendment 27, who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions rejected. Amendment 26, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions rejected.

Amendment 28, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions rejected. Amendment 29, who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions rejected. Amendment 30, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions rejected. Compromise amendment 12, who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions adopted. Amendment 43, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions rejected.

Abstentions. I need to check it. I open the vote. Two missing, one missing. I close the vote and it's rejected.

Thank you. Amendment 46, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions rejected. Amendment 47, who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions rejected. Amendment 51, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions rejected.

Amendment 52, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions. I need to check it. I open the vote.

I close the vote and is adopted. Thank you. Amendment 53, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions rejected.

Compromise amendment 13, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions adopted. Amendment 59, who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions rejected. Amendment 60, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions rejected. Amendment 61, who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions. I need to check it. I open the vote. I close the vote and is adopted.

Abstentions. Compromise amendment 14, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment 15, who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions adopted. Amendment 84, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions.

I need to check it. I open the vote. It's clear, but you didn't manage to vote. It's against, clearly against. I close the vote.

It's rejected. Amendment 85, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions rejected. Amendment 86, who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions. I need to check it. I open the vote. Now it's not clear, colleagues.

I see you voting. And I close the vote. And it's rejected. Amendment 87, who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions rejected. Amendment 88, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions rejected. Compromise amendment 16, who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions adopted. Amendment 92, who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions rejected.

Abstentions? Rejected. Amendment 93. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions? I check. I open the vote. 94, yes, colleagues, 94. I close the vote.

And it's adopted. Thank you. Amendment number 3. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions? Adopted. Amendment 95. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions? I think it's adopted, but I will check. I open the vote. I close the vote. Yes, you voting too close.

It's adopted. Thank you, colleagues. 99. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions? Rejected. 97. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions? Rejected. Compromise amendment 17. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions? Adopted. Amendment 105. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions? I need to check it, colleagues. I open the vote. 105. I close the vote.

And it's rejected. Thank you. 106. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions? I need to check it. I open the vote. And I close the vote. And it's carried.

121. Who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions? Rejected.

Compromise amendment 18. Who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions? Adopted.

Amendment... Yes, amendment 131 with oral amendment. Is there objection to this oral amendment? If there is no objection, we vote on it. There is no objection, so we vote.

Do I need, do we need to read it out? Do you want it to be read out? Yes. It's in the file, but I will read it. Oral amendment replace the words "notably in countries in the Global South" with the words "notably in low and middle income countries".

This is the oral amendment and there is no disagreement, so we vote on that. Who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions? Adopted.

Amendment 132. Who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions? Rejected.

Amendment 136. Who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions? Rejected.

Who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions? Adopted. Amendment 136.

Amendment 137.

Who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions? Rejected. Amendment 137.

Who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions? I need to check it. I open the vote.

And I close the vote. And it's adopted. Thank you colleagues. 138. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions? Rejected. 139. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Abstentions? I need to check it because it was not clear for me. I open the vote. It's super clear now.

I close the vote. Thank you colleagues and unfortunately to Ms. Gosiewska it's rejected. Amendment 140. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions? Adopted. 141. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Abstentions? Rejected. And the final vote is by roll call vote. I open the vote. All of you want to vote?

No, then I close the vote. One is not voting. And it's adopted. Congratulations to our colleague. Well done.

Compliment. Grazie tante. Okay, thank you colleagues for this vote. Well done. Thank you.

So we continue. This is a single vote if approved the question of the joint communication on humanitarian aid which was adopted by the college last week will be submitted by the chair on behalf of the DEVE committee for an oral reply by the commission in a future plenary session. The chair has asked me to appeal to the political groups once more to support this question actively at the conference of presidents so it may be included in the draft agenda of the July plenary session and followed up with the debate and resolution. And this is a single roll call vote on joint communication on humanitarian aid. Our rapporteur in this is our great chair Barry Andrews whom we miss.

So I open the vote now. It's a roll call vote. I open the vote. Please vote colleagues. All of you voted.

I close the vote. And congratulations to Barry and all people working on that. It's adopted. Thank you very much colleagues. Then we go to another file, the strengthening global health resilience in partner countries, Barry Andrews.

This is a single vote and again it's the same question. I will not read it again. This is the ask of Barry to all of us to support him on this in our political groups. This is a single roll call vote. I open the vote.

Thank you colleagues. I close the vote. And it's clearly adopted. Well done. Thank you very much colleagues.

And with this we finish the voting session. Thank you very much. One minute break.

Okay colleagues, so we continue our committee meeting with super important and interesting topic, the impact of the energy transition on the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. We have an excellent study here already delivered to us, presentation of a study by the authors who are with us and I want to welcome them, Mathieu Blondel and Inna Lehmann. I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name. Good, thank you. So, we have now the opportunity to discuss a research paper on the impact, as I said, of the energy transition on the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities in our partner countries requested last year by our committee.

The final study is in the dossier for the meeting and publicly available on the EP's Think Tank website too. You have also printed copy as I said. We have also invited members from ITRE committee to this discussion as their input can only of course enrich our debate. The paper analyzes both risks and opportunities of energy transition related projects and initiatives for local communities.

It includes four case studies which in light highlight best practices and as well as shortcomings and risk linked to EU and member state interventions and supply chains. The findings of the paper are highly relevant since the topic comes up again and again in our debates. Be it on the rollout of Global Gateway, on the implementation of the SDGs, or on our critical raw material partnerships with low and middle income countries. We also plan to go to Bolivia by the way to discuss this issue. By the way, I notice the cover is the Bolivian cover, a beautiful one.

The upcoming negotiations over Global Europe will also be crucial since the regulation will define how the EU engages with local stakeholders and how it integrates the human rights dimension in development cooperation. Once again, I want to welcome our authors who informed me that it's their first time here, so please be nice to our great researchers. They're super professional, but it's their first time. Both are working at the Institute for Environmental Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. So we look forward for your presentations and recommendations.

And who wants to start? You both have ten minutes. You can share it. Mr. Blondel.

32:55 - 32:58

Mathieu Blondel

Yes, I'll be presenting and then we'll take the Q and A together.

32:58 - 44:27

Robert Biedroń

Go on. The floor is yours for ten minutes.

Thank you very much. Um, yes, so good morning everyone and many thanks for the invitation to present our report entitled The Impact of the Energy Transition on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, co-authored with Inan sitting next to me of course, but also Mirja Schoderer who couldn't be here with us today. Next slide please. I'll start with some background to the report, then I focus on the analysis of the international and EU regulatory contexts, followed by a brief overview better of the case studies and then ending with some of the highlighted recommendations from our work. Next slide please.

In this report, ladies and gentlemen, we focus on how the EU can account for both the positive and the negative impacts of the energy transition projects it supports, specifically in low and middle income countries. And as requested by the committee, we focused on the impacts as said earlier on some of the most vulnerable and marginalized communities in these countries, namely indigenous peoples and local communities. And so this analysis has been conducted across four case studies that I'll come back to in a second and three analytical themes, namely the impacts on socio-environmental issues, socio-economic issues, but also socio-political impacts of these types of reports. Next slide please. So the key, just very briefly on the international context, some of the key international instruments for the establishment of indigenous rights are the ILO's Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention or ILO 169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

And together these both basically form the foundation of indigenous people's rights to autonomy but also to self-determination and establish the concept of free, prior and informed consent as well that are absolutely essential or pivotal to indigenous people's rights. And so in the report as well, we focus on various multilateral development finance institutions including the World Bank but also the GEF and also the European Investment Bank and the extent to which they engage with some of these foundational principles and norms when it comes to indigenous people. So there's a very elaborate comparative analysis that we conduct of a number of these institutions. But it's not only better these financial institutions that engage with indigenous people's rights.

It's also other international organizations including, for example, the Convention on Biological Diversity, but also the UNFCCC, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. And also here we see very much a differentiation in the extent to which these different international organizations engage with indigenous peoples' rights. So again, in the interest of time, I can't go into detail here, but a lot more information is in the report and I'm happy to take questions during the Q&A later on as well. So is Ina, of course. Next slide, please.

We also analyzed a number of relevant EU initiatives and programs and strategies, some of which have already been mentioned better by the chair, including the Global Gateway, but also the Critical Raw Materials Act. And what we find there is that there is indeed quite some engagement with indigenous peoples' rights, although sometimes to a limited extent and also indirectly. There's some examples of some of the existing challenges and future potential challenges behind me. Again, also much more detailed in the report as well. But let me just highlight one issue that I think is of particular interest.

For example, there's a non-exhaustive list of 19 key performance indicators against which the Global Europe's regulation's performance is assessed currently in the regulation. Yet it lacks explicit reference. So all of these 19 or none of these 19 KPIs actually explicitly refer to the safeguarding of indigenous peoples' rights and the safeguarding thereof. It's also noteworthy that the European Parliament in recent years has engaged with indigenous peoples' rights. Some resolutions have come out of the Parliament.

Unfortunately, not all recommendations have been taken up in recent years by various other EU institutions of some of these that have come out of the or some of these recommendations that have come out of these resolutions. Next slide, please. So as I said, we conducted four different case studies. In the interest of time again, unfortunately, I can't go into detail here about the content of these and the particular analysis that we conducted. But the four case studies included manganese mining in South Africa, lithium mining or lithium extraction in Bolivia, then also green hydrogen production and export in Namibia, in particular the Hyphen green hydrogen project.

And then also another topic that is outside of the remit of this committee, but nonetheless we believe very important, and that is the inclusion of international carbon credits under the newly established rules for the 2040 climate target. So we find that there are various different opportunities associated with these various case studies when it comes to the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities across these three dimensions that we've explored. So including some of the socio-environmental impacts, mainly related in some of the cases that we studied to access to water resources, which was a particular challenge when it comes to, for example, the challenges when it comes to manganese mining in South Africa. But there were various other challenges related to manganese mining in South Africa, including, for example, I just need to look here a bit to my slides or my speaking notes. Apologies for that.

Yeah, so some of the challenges include very limited benefit sharing with mining-affected communities in South Africa, barely implemented consultation processes and shortcomings in regulatory oversight and monitoring of the environmental impact. So the access to water resources, for example, that we highlighted.

Next slide, please. So when it comes to lithium mining in Bolivia, some of the challenges that we found there as well is issues when it comes to also environmental issues, so access to water resources, but also meaningful community consultations, so the concept of free, prior and informed consent is something that is really relevant here in this context and also issues related to technical expertise and the lack of knowledge on some of the potential negative implications of the mining activities that could take place there. So for the next slide, please, sorry. For the third case study, that's the last one I want to focus on a little bit, we focused on the development of specifically the Hyphen green hydrogen project in Namibia, which is a cornerstone of Namibia's green hydrogen strategy. And the project has received some indirect EU support already, although it should be noted that this is limited, this support.

Further support by the EU is contingent on future approvals by the Namibian government, and other green hydrogen projects are actually also being supported by the EU in Namibia. However, this is a particularly interesting one because it's a rather controversial project that's received criticism for its potential environmental impacts and the socio-political impacts with regard to indigenous land rights. So I think there's some interesting best practices that the EU and the EU delegation has established there, including offering training to indigenous peoples and local communities there to engage in the environmental impact assessment process that takes place in the feasibility studies for this project. So I think this is a best practice that could be implemented elsewhere as well. So again, I have very limited time to also reflect a little bit on some of the key recommendations that we have here.

So let me just highlight a few. I think one particularly interesting one could be the DEVE Committee reflecting on the potential establishment of an energy transition project monitoring group, which is quite a mouthful, of course, but this is something that also has some precedent in some of the earlier parliamentary resolutions that have come out on the impacts of extractive industries activities in developing countries and the Global South. And this group could, for example, monitor, evaluate and advise on different types of projects funded or supported through, for example, the Global Gateway, but other collaboration mechanisms and partnerships as well. Another example or another recommendation is, for example, the EU and Member States could promote efforts to ensure local authorities in partner countries to have sufficient technical and institutional capacity to conduct and verify environmental measures, a particular challenge that we found in our study. A third example is there's a need, and I think that there's a recommendation here, to better coordinate the approach to the management of partnerships and energy transition projects in partner countries as well, because this more coordinated approach improves internal cohesion, but also partnership effectiveness and efficiency, and it provides a clear overview to local stakeholders to address complaints or grievances.

And last but not least, at level of international organizations, I think that there are also some particularly interesting avenues forward for the Development Committee and the European Union in general, the European Parliament in particular also, to promote the strong and permanent body for indigenous peoples at the UNFCCC, similar to permanent subsidiary body that has been established under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

So there are actually some precedents in international organizations where UNFCCC and other international conventions could actually learn from. So that's very much a bird's eye overview of the report. I forgot to say to go to next slides at some point, so apologies for that. But thank you very much for your attention and we're happy to take any questions or comments that you still have. Thanks a lot.

Thank you very much, Mr. Blonder. Super interesting and I think super helpful for our future plans of the work of the committee. Besides going to Bolivia, we have different projects, including Global Europe, we are working on Global Gateway, so super interesting. Okay, we start now the debate, Q&A session. Colleagues who wants to take the floor, please indicate it clearly.

We start with Udo Bullmann from S&D.

44:27 - 49:31

Udo Bullmann

First of all, chair, thanks a lot to our researchers. It's totally interesting, even if we did not have the time to do the full reading now, I'm quickly running through. Let me tell you that some of the examples are knowledgeable to us. So our current chair knows Bolivia excellently. This Parliament has visited Namibia.

We were in this project with a delegation together with the Commission, Hyphen we visited. I know a bit about South Africa, others too. Let me come forward with a general question. And I hope that we have the Commission in the room as well, so that they may be representatives welcome could could pick up a couple of of questions afterwards as well. Figure out the following situation.

And this not cannot be part of your research because it was not part of the mandate. In the countries which we call sometimes Global South, you have a ruthless competition between China and the US, both of them radically exploiting some different methodologies, brutally exploiting the minerals, the countries, and of course communities, including the indigenous people. No rules, no regulations, no criteria. Europe steps in, having a good idea, Commission will come in and call that the 360 degree approach where we watch everything, the environment, the people, the economy and and the nature and whatever you you could watch, we watch, and then we do something. Then you have drivers of these processes, private industry for instance, because this is the very purpose of Global Gateway.

Global Gateway tries to to bring in private money and they have their criteria. Go for the Hyphen project in Namibia. They say for instance, well, it's very difficult to create a hydrogen market at the very moment you have much more possibilities to create hydrogen sources and and infrastructure than a market in Europe. And then a ship industry corporation from the Netherlands come in and say, well, okay, that's fine, but we need to have it close to the coastline. Okay.

And in your comments, you ask the question why do they not go further away from the coastline where the profit for the indigenous community could be much bigger. This is a very concrete and totally justified question. And only to inform you, principally I'm totally on the side of your argument, but I see that this is sometimes not only a question of good intentions, but a question of good management.

And the management is a management of engineering, local circumstances, private investment structures, not only local, but it's also a power play that is about bargaining. And here you have, in both cases, South Africa as well as Namibia, this is not the weakest countries we can deal with. They are strong. They have a strong infrastructure. They are politically elected in their leadership structures, and they normally do not ignore what their political will is.

So if they co-decide a process against certain communities where we find out by excellent research, well, this is to the detriment of the local communities, it's not easy to play against a government that is legitimately elected. So this is the whole field, this is the whole problem area, and I wanted to incentivize you for going one step further. The good ideas you have, I totally appreciate. Have you any idea, given your interviews, and the same question goes to the Commission afterwards, how we can strengthen good practices in that respect? It's much more than a monitoring board, a monitoring group, or an institutional approach.

It's a question of capacities and of the mandate of the EU delegation on the ground, because they are manufacturing the whole setup, and the Commission's capacity in Brussels to be our partner in improving the whole constellation. That is, forgive me for this very complex idea, but this is what I could contribute to the conversation.

49:31 - 49:36

Robert Biedroń

Thank you very much, colleague. Ana Miranda Paz.

49:36 - 54:08

Ana Miranda Paz

I'm going to speak in Spanish, if you need. Como relatora especial de para los pueblos indígenas de esta Comisión de Desarrollo, quiero en primer lugar expresar nuestro agradecimiento por el informe. Un informe exhaustivo, un informe necesario y además un informe que nos da pistas de cómo integrar los derechos de los pueblos indígenas en la legislación europea, porque hay carencias y además hay necesidades de que estos pueblos afectados por proyectos europeos sean escuchados. Sea escuchado su consentimiento libre, previo e informado tal como establece la legislación internacional. Por eso valoro muy positivamente el grupo de la propuesta de grupo de monitorización de transición energética en los proyectos del Global Gateway e impacto en las comunidades indígenas.

Y por eso, ¿cómo verían ustedes la necesidad de hacer esta valoración del o esta puesta en marcha del grupo de monitoreo inmediatamente, ya que algunos proyectos van a estar en marcha pronto, o esperar una evolución en función de los primeros proyectos? Yo soy partidaria de cuanto antes, pero bueno, es también querer saber su opinión. Por otra parte, respecto a los indicadores, ninguno de estos indicadores, como decían ustedes, se refiere a la evaluación necesaria y adaptada que tienen sí algunos bancos, por ejemplo, algunas entidades financieras y que no está teniendo la Comisión Europea en este caso. Y por último, también quiero exponer un caso concreto, un caso muy concreto que además afecta a Holanda. Es el caso de Berta Cáceres.

Hoy está su hija en el Parlamento Europeo, Berta Zúñiga Cáceres. Han presentado este informe, es precisamente un proyecto del Global Gateway en el que esa implementación en un proyecto energético en Honduras que se realizó con la participación de bancos, incluido un banco holandés, y que tiene en este informe que invito a estudiar a la Comisión Europea, por favor, sé que se han reunido además con ustedes ayer, invito a estudiarlo porque hay una conexión directa entre el asesinato de Berta Cáceres y una conexión total en el debilitamiento de las cláusulas vinculantes y el proceso legislativo en la evaluación de un banco holandés que financia un proyecto, un proyecto, insisto, del Team Europe del Global Gateway y una conexión entre el desvío de fondos ilícitos en relación con la planificación de este asesinato, no que lo haya cometido el banco, por supuesto, pero sí que hay una vinculación directa establecida en este informe en un proyecto extractivo. Eso por una parte, y por eso también diez años después de su asesinato creo que es bueno recordar que el monitoreo es más necesario que nunca, que el monitoreo de los proyectos, la trazabilidad financiera que sí establecen muchas entidades financieras internacionales y que no establece el Parlamento. Por eso insto a esta comisión a que hagamos una pregunta parlamentaria en pleno sobre el consentimiento libre, previo e informado de los pueblos indígenas y el impacto que puedan tener ciertos proyectos. Y ahora me paso a Bolivia.

En Bolivia en estos momentos hay una movilización, como ustedes saben, una movilización de los pueblos indígenas. En Bolivia cuestionar el tema del Salar de Uyuni es casi sagrado entre todas las opciones políticas y yo creo que tenemos que hacer un especial monitoreo de esta cuestión. De hecho va a haber una misión seguramente a Bolivia si las circunstancias políticas lo permiten. Y ya por último también preguntarles cómo valoran la aplicación del Convenio 169 de Naciones Unidas, del Convenio de la OIT en relación con la implementación en algunos Estados miembros que no lo están teniendo en cuenta, Estados miembros de la Unión Europea además. Muchas gracias.

54:08 - 59:07

Robert Biedroń

Muchísimas gracias, many important questions, thank you very much, colleague. Is there anyone else who wants to intervene in this round? No, then we are back to our excellent experts who wants to answer. Go on, Mr. Blondel again.

Yes, thank you very much. Thank you very much for these comments and questions, very useful. I'll try to be as brief yet as comprehensive as possible in my response to them. First to the excellent questions by Mr. Bullmann. Yes, when it comes to the particular issue of strengthening and looking at some of the best practices to avoid harmful impacts on the rights of indigenous peoples, I think the question with regards to best practices, I think what the Commission or the delegation is doing on the ground there in terms of implementing and providing and offering these training sessions, as limited as they might be still for indigenous peoples and local communities to be part of the environmental impact assessment process and the stakeholder meetings in that respect are particularly relevant and an interesting best practice that could be implemented elsewhere.

I don't think that in the other two case studies that focus particularly on extractive activities in Bolivia and in South Africa, we've seen similar activities from the EU delegation on the ground. So I think that this is something that could be reflected on, that could be implemented elsewhere as well. And I think with regards to the role of the EU delegation and what can be done also in the future to avoid again these types of harmful impacts, I think of course it's one thing that the Commission and other relevant EU partners, also member states and their agencies that are working on the ground there, avoid from or refrain from being part of decision or policy-making processes. We don't want them to intervene there. But I think what's important to reflect on here is that these environmental and social impact assessments are carried out by parties, of course, by the developers of certain projects.

I think the oversight and monitoring and the accountability processes there, I think the European Commission, but perhaps also other EU institutions and relevant partners should take up a more involved role, if you will. Because it's one thing to say we're only going to get involved if the environmental impact assessments get approved. But okay, how does that approval take place and what are the processes? And there the monitoring already needs to take place in the process leading up to a decision made by local authorities or national authorities in the countries that the EU collaborates with. So that would be my response to those questions by Mr. Bullmann.

Now in respect to the answer to the questions by Ms. Miranda Paz, how do we see monitoring of these issues, if I understood the question correctly? I think my answer to Mr. Bullmann's question is a bit similar to that, where I see that the relevant EU partners need to be involved, scrutinizing environmental impact and social impact assessments much more in the process already rather than just waiting for a thumbs up or thumbs down, if you will, from local or domestic authorities when it comes to the implementation and approval of these processes. The Honduras case, unfortunately, I can't directly talk about because it's a case that I'm not familiar with. But our research, and this is important when it comes to violence as well, of course, as well, our research has found that foreign direct, I'm quoting from the report here on page four, our research has found that foreign direct investment in or near indigenous lands may increase violent conflict, especially when indigenous rights are inadequately protected. So it is an empirical truth that if we do not protect indigenous people's rights, there is a greater chance of violent conflicts, of violence.

And this violence is often also gendered as well, which is absolutely critical to take away as well. So in that respect, I think that it's an absolutely critical point to raise and something to take into account further. For the ILO point, maybe I can leave it to that, but if you have anything to add, please. Thanks a lot.

59:07 - 59:09

Mathieu Blondel

Ms. Lehmann, would you like to take the floor?

59:09 - 01:01:23

Inna Lehmann

Well, thank you for raising those questions and thank you, of course, for already starting to answer them.

I don't think I have that much to add, but a few points maybe especially on the ILO point and also the free prior and informed consent also relating to your comment that or question whether the evaluation should wait or start now. I think essentially the idea of free prior and informed consent, I mean there's this important word of prior in there, means that assessment and evaluation actually should start even before the start of a project in terms of, I mean we mentioned in the report environmental and social impacts assessment which are ideally done before projects go ahead and also consultation with indigenous people and local communities should happen before projects start. And that also, I mean FPIC, free prior and informed consent is an important element of the ILO 169 of course which you mentioned and indeed you pointed out that only very few European countries have ratified this. Still I would say that this whole idea of FPIC and ILO 169 is an important I would say normative reference point even if sometimes not so strong on the legal side. But I would also like to add that we of course also have the United Nations declarations on the rights of indigenous people, so UNDRIP.

And this of course is a non-binding, well it's a declaration, but this has been adopted by many more countries and this is another complementary normative reference point, something that countries have committed to following and even in the UNDRIP we have the principle of free prior and informed consent. And as we also point out in the report, most of the development banks like the European Investment Bank, the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility, they all sign up to this principle of free prior and informed consent and that maybe also links back to your question about well what if the private companies come in and so forth. And we have China and we have the US, but still if there's money from development banks involved then these principles do play a role. Thank you.

01:01:23 - 01:01:51

Robert Biedroń

Thank you very much to both of you. Are there any colleagues wishing to make a comment or any additional questions? If it's not the case then we move to European Commission which was several times already asked to take the floor. So without further ado I will give the floor to Miha Ramakers, Deputy Head of Unit for Gender Equality, Human Rights and Democratic Governance at DG INTPA. The floor is yours and welcome.

01:01:51 - 01:06:10

Miha Ramakers

Thank you Chair and good morning to everyone. Thank you for the presentation, very interesting. Let me start by saying that the Commission welcomes this report which raises important issues and I think the exchange here has confirmed that very clearly. The Commission is committed to ensuring that the EU's investments are context-specific and designed around early engagement and consultation of the concerned communities through human rights due diligence processes and I'm going to try and outline some of those. This is consistent with its focus on sustainable investment through the Global Gateway strategy which as you know aims to improve enabling environments, supporting responsible value chains while strengthening governance, social acceptance and environmental safeguards.

The Commission uses various tools for this purpose. EU cooperation with partner countries is anchored in a mandatory human rights-based approach and in 2025 INTPA issued specific guidance to its staff on its application in the critical raw materials sector. INTPA also updated its business and human rights toolkit also last year. This provides specific guidance on human rights and environmental due diligence along global value chains. EU delegations, they've been mentioned, ensure that local communities are at the center of investments by engaging with local civil society stakeholders to pick up on some of the questions.

In Namibia this involves for example a relatively large 2.7 million euro project to support CSO capacity for advocacy and being a watchdog in that specific context.

In Bolivia, there is a roadmap for engagement with civil society, specifically on lithium and on critical raw materials. I can't go into the details, I have only a few minutes here. This approach underpins the principle of respect for the rights of indigenous peoples, including their meaningful and continuous participation in decisions affecting their territories, as well as free, prior and informed consent, as applicable under international and national standards, in line with the commitments expressed in the Council conclusions on indigenous peoples of 2017. INTPA has also reinforced its tools for early identification and mitigation of human rights risks, especially in high-risk sectors such as extractives and security around critical raw materials. The Commission uses a risk management framework designed to detect risks at an early stage, including risks of abuses against indigenous communities and environmental harm.

In 2025, the Commission also strengthened human rights safeguards in its contractual templates and formalized a procedure for handling complaints related to human rights abuses in EU-funded projects. As regards funding from the Human Rights and Democracy thematic program to civil society organizations, since 2014, the Commission has provided over 17 million euro to the Indigenous Navigator, a global framework developed by and for indigenous peoples to monitor the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples across 24 countries. The Commission also supports at this moment a project that has produced, among other things, a transition minerals tracker and initiatives which show how indigenous-led and community-owned renewable energy models can drive a fast and fair transition when businesses respect indigenous people's rights and prioritize genuine shared prosperity. In conclusion, the EU's drive for secure, sustainable access to critical raw materials and a fast energy transition aims to go hand in hand with the protection of individual indigenous people's rights, their meaningful participation and, where required, their free, prior and informed consent. The Commission is committed to working with partner countries, companies and, above all, indigenous communities themselves to make this a reality.

Thank you.

01:06:10 - 01:07:55

Udo Bullmann

Thank you very much. If you wish, I can give you additional time to answer Ms. Miranda Paz's question. She had a question, yes, and I see my colleagues want to follow up. So I give you some time. I come back to Mr. Bullmann and Ms. Miranda Paz for their follow-up.

Mr. Bullmann, the floor is yours.

I'm extremely grateful for the Commission to be here. Thanks for your information and thanks for your report. Allow me one observation and one question, one ask. Myself, I have been working in universities for 16 years before I came to the European Parliament as a parliamentarian. So I do not only know that are different viewpoints to be taken within research and political administration, that's for sure.

Different environments, different roles, but I also know from my experience from both areas, this is necessary. This is absolute, the tension between the two viewpoints and the two methodologies are absolutely of the essence for political improvement. So the dialogue starting from here is important between the research and between the interpretation of the political situation from the situation in the eyes, the lenses of the Commission.

What you mentioned for instance, the 2.7 million budget on the activities on the ground, it's absolutely worthwhile for us to follow up. And for instance, also the mandatory guidelines for our that were mentioned for our EU delegations and their practices, because that enables us to continue to work with and prolong our work with both information. Thank you very much.

01:07:55 - 01:07:58

Robert Biedroń

Thank you very much, Udo. Anna.

01:07:58 - 01:09:19

Ana Miranda Paz

Thank you, President. My question is the same question, and especially I would like to have the results of this monitoring. And also concerning the consent in the research, the document has shown that negligence in the indigenous rights in the case of FDI is correlated with increased violence, conflict in those areas. What would be your priority recommendations to the European Parliament in the remit of Global Gateway and the forthcoming Global Europe instrument? And I want also to encourage this committee to do a parliamentary question in the plenary about this important question.

We were in Latin America now, in Mexico, in the EuroLat, and in the forum of the civil society we speak about the indigenous peoples, about the prior and free consent, about the projects. I think it's a very important subject now in Latin America. We need to be also the bridge with them.

01:09:19 - 01:09:55

Robert Biedroń

Thank you very much, Anna. Thank you for your initiative. Your group can raise it at the coordinators' meeting, the issue, so you can refer it to your advisors' work group. Anyway, yes, so we have six minutes left. If Commission wants to comment, of course, I can give the floor to Commission if you were wishing.

Or experts, do you want to comment on any of that? You are free not to comment too, eh. Yes. Do you want to comment? Three minutes, three minutes.

Yes, three minutes, three minutes. You have three minutes and Commission, if you wish, you have three minutes. We start with the experts. Go on.

01:09:55 - 01:10:44

Inna Lehmann

Yeah, thank you, and thank you for raising up this very important question also. I mean, of course, free, prior, informed consent is one thing, but then the question is what happens if, if rights are not respected? And one thing, of course, that we point out in the report is the importance of grievance mechanisms. So most of these development banks and their standards, they really ask for project developers to have grievance mechanisms. That would be for the project developers.

And then of course, I mean, we it goes beyond the energy transition, but generally to support rule of law and human rights-based approaches, but also to support the judiciary system, because of course in the end if there's violations, then it's a question also for the judiciary system to deal with this.

01:10:44 - 01:11:52

Robert Biedroń

Just very quickly following up on complaints and grievance mechanisms. There's also an opinion of the European Court of Auditors when it comes to the EFSD+, which is the main financing tool also of Global Gateway, that has found that actually European Commission does not have, I think it's a 2024 opinion, that the Commission did not have an online platform, if you will, where stakeholders that were negatively affected by certain projects, including Global Gateway projects, could actually, well, voice their grievances and submit these complaints. So I think that it's absolutely crucial to allow for relatively easily accessible mechanisms and platforms for stakeholders, indigenous peoples, local communities, but other organizations and affected communities as well, to to voice their grievances. And this is something to definitely follow up on as well, and that has been voiced by by other organizations as well.

Thank you very much. European Commission, do you want to comment on anything? The floor is yours for three minutes.

01:11:52 - 01:13:50

Miha Ramakers

Thank you very much. I don't think I'll need three minutes, but on the first question, yes, of course, we're happy to share the details of any project, including this one. I think the guidelines I believe we already shared with the committee, but that can be provided again. So I mean, this is part of a basic transparency, of course. On Honduras, on the Honduras case, that was ten years ago.

Global Gateway didn't exist ten years ago, so the link is a bit tenuous. That doesn't mean that this wasn't a dramatic incident. And we are also actually meeting with Ms. Cáceres' daughter and her colleague, I think tomorrow. That's right, tomorrow or this afternoon, actually, yes. As my colleague Adele sitting next to me and other colleagues.

On easy access for voicing grievances, indeed, there was that recommendation from the European Court of Auditors. As I mentioned in the intervention, in 2025, we formalized a complaints procedure precisely focusing on human rights abuses, not only in the context of EFSD+, but in general where that might be the case with EU projects. So we do take this very seriously. And of course, the delegations, which are usually closer to specific issues locally than headquarters in Brussels, do engage very proactively with civil society organizations and, you know, provide access to share any concerns and engage in structured dialogue with civil society organizations and other relevant parties. So I think, is it all perfect?

Probably not. But we, I think, are trying to show that we are trying to make efforts to address these concerns and we take it very seriously. Thank you.

01:13:50 - 01:27:54

Robert Biedroń

Excellent. Thank you very much, Mr. Amakers. Thank you to European Commission for being with us today as always. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay, colleagues, unfortunately we don't have time anymore to continue this super interesting discussion. How was it? Did you enjoy? Good. So thank you.

I hope you all enjoyed as our experts. Thank you to our experts for providing us this excellent work. We will use it, as you see, very practical for our future work. Thank you, colleagues, for your debate and we continue in one, in two minutes. In two minutes.

Take your break. Two minutes. Thank you.

Okay, colleagues, we proceed with our committee meeting. It was voted this morning the best committee in the world, so I welcome everyone at this ninth point of our meeting, presentation of the joint communication on humanitarian aid. And this is the presentation of the joint communication, as I said, on defending values, driving reform, delivering impact, the EU's humanitarian action in a shifting global order, which covers specific commitments in the areas of international humanitarian law and humanitarian diplomacy, effectiveness and resilience of humanitarian system and fragility. Five years after the last humanitarian communication, we welcome the presentation of the joint communication on humanitarian aid by the Commission and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs. Given the dramatically evolving global context and the increasing pressure on humanitarian system, a renewed commitment to humanitarian aid and its principles is both timely and necessary.

We are facing unprecedented humanitarian needs worldwide, while at the same time humanitarian funding is under severe strain due to major cuts by donors, including our own EU member states. We welcome therefore the opportunity to be briefed by both DG ECHO and the EEAS on the joint communication. We are particularly eager to understand how this communication will go beyond business as usual, how responsibilities across the relevant Commission DGs, in particular DG INTPA, DG NEAR, DG ENER, as well as the FPI and others and the EEAS will be clarified, what concrete implementation plan is foreseen and how the European Parliament can be meaningfully involved in the follow-up and implementation process.

Without further delay, I give the floor to Mr. Hans Das, who is the Deputy Director in DG ECHO and EU Director. We are very generous to DG ECHO because you have eight minutes, which is a record. So eight minutes for you, Director, and welcome once again.

01:27:54 - 01:37:20

Hans Das

Thank you so much and good morning everybody. It's a great pleasure for me to be in what is then the best committee in the Parliament, so very happy to hear that. Thank you very much for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman and dear honorable members, to brief you on the communication that we have just presented. Let me use these eight minutes wisely and start immediately. Let me explain first a little bit why we are presenting this communication now, and secondly, I'll focus on the main new elements and how this goes beyond business as usual.

But first, why are we doing this? Very simply, humanitarian needs are rising. They are rising exponentially. Today, about 240 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance globally. If you want to visualize that very abstract figure of 240 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, it is roughly the equivalent of the entire population of Germany, France, Italy, and Belgium together.

Around half a billion children, and that is a figure that always makes me very sad, around half a billion children, that is one out of five children globally, are living in or are fleeing from conflict zones. 120 million people were forcibly displaced or seeking asylum in 2025. And while conflicts are rising, climate change and environmental degradation are also increasing the frequency of natural hazards, disproportionately impacting the most fragile contexts where communities are least able to cope. And that brings me to the topic of fragility, which is also on the rise globally. Around two billion people, and that is 25% of the global population, live in highly fragile situations, and three quarters of these live in extreme fragile cases.

That fragility is not a faraway problem for us. It is fueling insecurity and disrupting development progress worldwide and has potential spillover effects affecting also the EU's security and prosperity. So apart from doing the right thing morally, it's also in our self-interest to address these issues. So what I'm trying to say on this slide is that the humanitarian aid system is a system under enormous pressure at this moment in time. Next slide, please.

But it's not only that. The norms and values underpinning the humanitarian system are also under attack. International humanitarian law and humanitarian norms are increasingly being disregarded, while the accountability of perpetrators remains limited. We're seeing more and more deliberate attacks on humanitarian personnel, civilians, and social infrastructure. All of these are growing exponentially.

Just to quote two examples, more than 100,000 civilians were killed in armed conflicts in 2025 alone, and attacks against health facilities have doubled between 2023 and 2024. We have access problems in many different crisis theaters. We have sexual and gender-based violence in many different crisis contexts, including conflict-related sexual violence. All of these are on the rise.

Next slide. And that brings me to the funding situation, because on top of all of that, the humanitarian system is also a system that is systematically underfunded now, not in the least due to major policy decisions and drastic funding cuts by some major donors. You are well aware of this. Last year, 65% of the needs remained unfunded, the highest gap on record since 2016. And so this is forcing many humanitarian organizations to dramatically review and downscale operations.

And that is why we think we need to make a choice, and the next slide will sort of give us the overview of the new elements in the communication. We need to make a choice, and the Commission is proposing to make a very deliberate, conscious choice and to take a very clear position and to commit, all of us, to remain a credible, reliable, and predictable donor, which will continue to stand up for humanitarian principles and the rules-based multilateral system, while at the same time also driving reform to make the humanitarian system more impactful, effective, and efficient. So that's why we have this joint communication from the Commission and the HRVP, which basically has three main parts, three main priorities: protect, perform, and partner. And these are separate priorities, but they obviously are interlinked and they mutually reinforce each other. Under each of these priorities, there are three key initiatives.

I will not go over all of these, but just to give you a few ones. So the first priority is to protect. The Commission together with the High Representative will continue to defend international humanitarian law and we will step up humanitarian diplomacy. My colleague from the External Action Service will say more about that in a moment. We will also do more to protect aid workers through financial support, capacity building, and security training.

We will expand our Protect Aid Workers program to improve care and support for the victims and survivors of attacks. And we will step up our support for community-based and locally led assistance, so we are reaffirming our commitments on localization and we will continue to place protection at the heart of our response. I want to mention in particular the SHIELD initiative, which is an initiative for sexual and reproductive health in emergencies and life in dignity, which will help us to improve access to sexual and reproductive healthcare in crises and strengthen support for survivors of gender-based violence. Second priority is to improve the performance of the humanitarian system. We need to make it more cost-effective, we need to make it more resilient.

Again, three ideas there or three initiatives. We are stepping up our work on humanitarian supply chains. Our humanitarian partners, UN and INGOs, need to team up on humanitarian supply chain and need to exploit economies of scale. We will be launching a Humanitarian Supply Chain Charter in this respect, where we expect everybody to commit to an ambitious way forward on this.

We will also step up our work on transformative financing and simplification, blended finance, multi-purpose cash, localization, multi-year funding, etc., etc. And our aspiration is to have two-thirds of the Commission's annual humanitarian budget be spent in these ways. Third priority is to build upon and extend our partnerships, notably in the most challenging and fragile contexts. So under the steering of Commissioner Labib and Sikela, the Commission together with the HRVP will implement a more integrated approach to fragility as set out in the communication. First and foremost, this is about a very important message that we will stay engaged in highly and extremely fragile contexts.

We will step up coordination along the humanitarian development peace nexus within the Commission and within Team Europe. And we will try to involve also traditional and non-traditional donors into this. And we will put more focus on strengthening the resilience of affected people and societies and seek more sustainable solutions. We also want to step up cooperation with the private sector and to that end we are launching a global platform with the World Economic Forum, the WEF, for engagement with the private sector in humanitarian settings. We will also be launching new initiatives with international financial institutions and we will be promoting and reinforcing a real Team Europe approach in all of this.

So there's lots of new ideas and old new ideas on the table. But I think the important signal here is that we want to remain committed. We remain committed to the principles. We remain committed to the donorship that we have always shown. And we want to play a lead role as European Union in this area.

Thank you so much for your generosity in time.

01:37:20 - 01:37:35

Robert Biedroń

Thank you very much, very interesting. And with this we continue with Mr. Martin Billi Hermann, Managing Director for Multilateral Relations, Human Rights and Democracy in EEAS. The floor is yours for five minutes.

01:37:35 - 01:43:16

Martin Billi Hermann

Oh, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you Hans for setting the scene so well and I suppose also for illustrating very, very clearly how the humanitarian system today is, if you like, operating at breaking point, not just when it comes to unprecedented needs and drastic funding cuts, but actually also when it comes to norms and values. Now, the honorable members of Parliament, with 130 armed conflicts worldwide, twice as many as 15 years ago, with access to the places where aid is the most needed getting increasingly difficult and with international law being sort of systematically disregarded, the challenges are of course daunting, no? Now, as Hans alluded to, the numbers are stark. Around 70% of humanitarian needs now arise out of armed conflicts.

Humanitarian staff and aid infrastructure are increasingly and deliberately targeted. We see this very clearly in some of the world's most worst humanitarian crises such as Sudan, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. Now, today it's very, very clear that foreign policy engagement aimed at, you like, at bridging the traditional divides between the humanitarian and political fields is needed more than ever to create the necessary conditions for, one, humanitarian assistance to be delivered safely and effectively, two, to protect civilians and to some extent aid workers as well, and three, support for respect for international humanitarian law. And that in a nutshell is what we are aiming to achieve with this sort of new strategic approach on humanitarian diplomacy that we presented jointly with the Commission last week.

Now, I think as the chair said, you know, going beyond business as usual. So what does this mean in in in more concrete terms? Let's let's move to slide number one. Now, it means that we will need to better and more strategically leverage our political and diplomatic weight and to use our tools to achieve maximum impact. To give just a few concrete examples of how we can do this, we can do this one by using EU common security and defense policy missions and operations to protect aid deliveries, like Operation Atalanta in Somalia that has protected around two and a half thousand vessels transporting more than 3.3 million tons of food and aid delivered to Somali ports.

We can also do it by pushing for humanitarian corridors and respect for international humanitarian law, as we try to do in Sudan where an initiative on the protection of critical infrastructure was launched under the leadership of the EU special representative for the Horn of Africa. Now, the reality is that at the EU level, we have many potentially very, very powerful avenues to increase our advocacy and action. We will in this respect, we will be looking at including more systematically discussions on international humanitarian law violations and access restrictions in our political security and human rights dialogues and in our diplomatic demarches, as well as making them part of our mediation and peacebuilding effort. Two, we will also increasingly try to leverage, as I indicated, the mandates of EU special representatives and work with EU common security and defense policy missions to promote human rights and the protections of civilians. And third, we will also be working to strengthen strategic alliances, the partner element that Hans mentioned, with key states and multilateral organizations through the UN system as a priority.

Now, in all of this and across all of this, EU delegations will be playing a key role on the ground. Let's move to slide two. Now, we are also setting out how EU engagement on humanitarian diplomacy can be reinforced at normative and operational level. This includes, for example, launching a training program to equip EU staff at all levels with the skills and understanding to effectively address humanitarian challenges and to make links to conflict prevention, mediation and peacebuilding through diplomatic efforts. Now finally, let me just add a few words on fragility.

Hans already said something, but I think it's important to recognize that the global rise of fragility has a clear geopolitical dimension, with potential spillover effects for the security of the European Union and its partners. Now for for fragility to be tackled effectively, we cannot only focus on mitigating its consequences, no, we need to build resilience as a preventive action and we need to support the transition from protracted crisis into into peacebuilding. Now this requires an integrated approach engaging through the entire what's called in this lingo humanitarian-development-peace nexus and more systematic collaboration and strengthened partnerships with stakeholders. Dear members of of parliament, let let me conclude by saying as others reduce their involvement in the global humanitarian field, the European Union's commitment as the world's leading donor to humanitarian aid is more crucial than ever. Now when humanitarian principles are disregarded, the EU's role as a champion of the multilateral system and as a defender of the rules-based international order is more important, is more crucial and critical than ever before.

Now and as the system is overwhelmed by increasing demands and needs and complexities, we position ourselves also, as Hans alluded to, as drivers of reform, no. Now, achieving this depends very much on our ability to improve our internal coordination, building our capacity and ultimately achieving shared global objectives. So I am particularly pleased to be here together with DG ECHO, but also DG INTPA, with whom we will try be trying to take this work forward together to make sure that the ambitions set out in the joint communication and the staff working documents are turned into reality to do exactly as Hans said, that we can protect, we can perform, and part of that is reforming, and then partner. I thank you.

01:43:16 - 01:43:32

Robert Biedroń

Thank you very much, excellent. So now I open the floor for the discussion. We have some colleagues in the room who want to take the floor. Should we start with Udo Bullmann from S&D, Udo?

01:43:32 - 01:47:20

Udo Bullmann

Thank you very much. This high-level podium that we listened to was excellent and we understand the approach. And we are fully aware about the difficulties in your areas. And my full respect to you personally, to colleagues in your teams, what you are doing is absolutely necessary, it deserves the full support of the House of the European Parliament. And I know since you are sitting next to our current chair who is the co-rapporteur for Global Europe that there is taken already good care of the elements that you mentioned.

Having said that, that allows me for one remark you perhaps will not like. But that is me, otherwise it's boring. So the point is the following one. We are living in the world where our most important strategic partner deviates from our shared beliefs, from our values, from alliances in protecting peace and human rights and changes his attitude towards a new approach so we solve conflicts in the way that we either buy people off or bomb them away. So this is the new language, this is the new currency.

And that brings me to the prediction that the problems will rise. No, they will not be smaller tomorrow and the day after, they will rise. And I know that what you do now is absolutely necessary and the right thing to do and the right step to take and the right way to communicate. But let me be provocative, there is one bullet point missing in chapter three, in the third column. I'm deeply impressed by the systematic presentation of protect, perform and partner.

But in the third column I miss two bullet points. The first bullet point would read: revise the ambition and the tone in which we talk to those so-called partners who fool the conflicts in Africa for instance. That would be my number one because we know exactly that we are dealing at the very moment trade agreements, strategic memorandum of understanding, however you call that, with for instance the Gulf States, without them we would half of the problem would have half of the problem in military conflicts in Africa. So where is the language for that? Therefore I would propose a second bullet point to add on that in that third column: do not agree on these deals or memorandums of understanding if there is no success or progress in this respect.

And now we cannot get away with the answer: well, this is different people doing different things because I know about the silos in the European policy system. I would ask our chair of today to talk to the chair, to talk to the other chairs in this upscaling methodology in the European Parliament that we the European Parliament holds the college collectively responsible for such a new approach.

01:47:20 - 01:47:27

Robert Biedroń

Very good. Thank you very much, Udo. Ms Gosiewska next and then Charles Goerens. Thank you.

01:47:27 - 01:49:41

Małgorzata Gosiewska

Dziękuję bardzo. Tak, tak jak słusznie zostało zauważone, Unia Europejska to największy donator pomocy humanitarnej na świecie. Jednak potrzeby rosną, środki są niewystarczające i musimy dokonywać wyboru. Chciałabym więc zwrócić uwagę na nasze najbliższe sąsiedztwo, bo przecież w naszym najbliższym otoczeniu mamy kryzysy, które mają bezpośredni wymierny wpływ na naszą sytuację, sytuację Europejczyków, takie aspekty jak bezpieczeństwo, nielegalna migracja, wzrost cen czy niestabilność gospodarcza. I tu mam pytania.

Jakie konkretne mechanizmy przewidziano dla sąsiedztwa wschodniego i południowego? W jaki sposób Komisja w swojej polityce humanitarnej zamierza wspierać strategiczne interesy Unii Europejskiej w tym właśnie bezpieczeństwo, stabilność regionalną, gospodarczą czy ograniczenie przyczyn przymusowej migracji? I jeszcze jedno pytanie. Jakie działania zostaną podjęte, by dokładnie zweryfikować, weryfikować na bieżąco, czy pomoc humanitarna finansowana przez Unię Europejską faktycznie przynosi efekty, przyczynia się do ratowania życia i szanowni państwo, niezwykle ważne, czy ona nie trafia do skorumpowanych rządów, grup przestępczych czy tak zwanych lokalnych elit, a umacnia naszą pozycję na świecie? Jak wygląda monitoring Komisji w tym zakresie?

Ja ze swoich doświadczeń często widzę, że z naszych środków finansowane są rzeczy, na których nam absolutnie nie zależałoby i interesy właśnie lokalnych elit. Dziękuję.

01:49:41 - 01:49:49

Robert Biedroń

Dziękuję bardzo koleżance, to była koleżanka z EKR-u, a teraz przechodzimy do Renew, Charles Goerens. Proszę bardzo.

01:49:49 - 01:52:50

Charles Goerens

Merci Monsieur le Président, je voudrais m'associer à mon tour à ceux qui ont fait compliment à l'exposé qui vient de nous être fait. J'ai trois questions, trois groupes de questions. Première question a trait, vous avez dit dans votre présentation que vous avez fait état de l'implication du secteur privé dans le secteur humanitaire. J'aimerais savoir à ce propos si vous faites référence là à un mécénat du secteur privé pour de bonnes causes ou s'agit-il d'une intervention rémunérée ou s'agit-il d'interventions non rémunérées, j'aimerais être éclairé. Deuxièmement, étant donné que l'aide humanitaire est très souvent ou presque toujours une réponse à un échec et s'agissant de l'augmentation des besoins et de la diminution des fonds mobilisés par les États membres, je ne parle pas de la Commission mais des États membres, qu'est-ce que vous préconisez pour faire face à toutes ces situations?

La politique humanitaire, c'est comme toute politique, c'est une affaire de choix. Et quand vous êtes devant le choix d'aider quelqu'un et que vous n'avez plus les moyens d'aider un autre, que vous n'avez plus assez de moyens de continuer un projet, comment allez-vous opérer ? Quels vont être vos critères pour départager ceux qui vont encore être récipiendaires de l'aide et ceux qui ne le seront plus ? Et en rapport avec cette question, est-ce que vous prévoyez dans les actions à plus long terme que vous envisagez aussi et que vous mettez aussi en œuvre dans le cadre de l'aide humanitaire au développement, vous prévoyez des phasing out dans certaines approches ? Et la troisième, c'est une question qui a trait à la méthodologie.

Quand je vois les montants alloués à l'aide publique au développement, rentrent là-dedans les actions qui sont faites normalement dans les pays en développement pour être éligibles au titre du CAD, mais sont éligibles aussi les actions qui sont menées dans l'Union européenne et notamment dans le cadre de l'accueil des réfugiés. Quelle est la part de allouée au titre de l'aide publique au développement aux pays, aux États membres de l'Union européenne qui font face à des afflux de réfugiés ? Mais toujours est-il que cet argent n'est pas investi dans des pays en développement. Je vous remercie de la réponse.

01:52:50 - 01:55:18

Robert Biedroń

Merci beaucoup, cher collègue. And if you allow me, I know we are running out of time, but I will have very short questions, provoked also by Charles Goerens who had excellent questions on humanitarian aid. The global financing for humanitarian aid, as it was said, is shrinking and the needs are rising. You said, Director, eight times during last 20 years. We have less money with more needs.

So on that, my question would be how do you plan to deliver on that, having in mind all these challenges we have ? And shouldn't it be a priority for humanitarian aid to access the cushion proposed in the Global Europe proposal ? Then, there is a visible shift in the approach towards looking partnership, prioritizing partnership with private sector. So when the private sector steps in, the question is what will be their role in humanitarian aid also ? Is there a role for them ?

But if there is a role, what about NGOs and our traditional partners ? We don't have more money, we have less money with more actors, including private actors in the field. So how do you want to solve this issue ? And the third issue is, I fully agree, the growing attacks on humanitarian workers should be our concern and lack of accountability is a serious issue. And you have mentioned you will be advocating against international human rights violations.

What it will mean while there is no consequences on that ? We are seeing the deaths, but there is no consequence on that. So how effective we will be on that ? And with that, I only give each to you two minutes. And there will be a new player in our discussion.

The floor will be also to Ms. Sabine Zwaenepoel, I'm sorry if I misspelled your name, Head of the Unit Resilience, Peace and Security, DG INTPA, implementing partner, excellent implementing partner. So do you want to start first with your comments for two minutes and then we come back to our great guests ?

Okay, DG INTPA.

01:55:18 - 01:58:30

Sabine Zwaenepoel

Thank you very much, Chair, and also thank you very much to the members. Let me maybe start by saying that from a DG INTPA side, what you have on the table, and in particular the staff working document on an integrated approach to fragility, is the result of an 18 months long intensive cooperation with the colleagues of DG ECHO, where we have, with the help of EEAS, made a very thorough assessment of our toolbox and came to the conclusion that our toolbox is already very comprehensive. However, there is, and you have heard the geopolitical landscape in which we are acting, there is no room for complacency. We need to do things better, we need to be more impactful, we need to make sure that we make a difference while being a reliable donor. From an INTPA perspective, let me maybe focus, because you, Chair, you also asked about how are you going to implement that concretely, on three specific elements of importance.

First of all, what came very much out of the assessment is that we are already focusing on a transformative approach towards fragility. We have a very broad take towards building resilience through our social protection, basic services project. We focus already on economic development, climate resilience, human rights, conflict prevention, and name it, and we should continue to do that. It's a very important take to continue building resilience in this multidimensional way as we are doing it. However, what we want to do even more is to have a focus on an investment-led approach.

Here the private sector comes in, and as you know, the staff working document is above all focusing on those who attract the least funds, the highly, the extremely fragile settings, where we need to be more attentive into looking into innovative ways of financing, de-risking, create the conditions for the private sector and other donors, and make sure that we attract more means for those settings. If Global Gateway is possible, we will look into doing Global Gateway investments, building a nice 360-degree approach around it, making sure it is done in a conflict-sensitive and context-specific manner. Where Global Gateway is not possible, we will continue with our mix of basic services and other interventions, again tailored to the specific needs. Last thing I want to highlight is the HDP Nexus. We have by now, it's the 10th anniversary, and we are doing inside the Commission a series of workshops in order to build and continue to foster the knowledge among our colleagues, both in headquarters and delegation, on the HDP Nexus.

We have after 10 years a nice set of good examples where the Nexus has worked, and we are continue to learn lessons from that and trying to bring the Nexus to a 2.0 level. Thank you very much.

01:58:30 - 01:58:42

Robert Biedroń

Thank you very much to DG INTPA, and then we have two minutes for each of our two guests, Hans Das, two minutes from DG ECHO.

01:58:42 - 02:03:21

Hans Das

Thank you very much. It will be challenging to deal with all of this in two minutes, but let's say that this is the start, this is the start of a dialogue, and I'm very happy to come back on future occasions to continue the dialogue on all of these points. Let me just start by thanking the honorable member Bullmann for the positive comments at the start, and I think it is important that we keep this in mind. I mean, one of the humanitarian partners told me a few days ago that this is the only positive news the sector has received in the last two years.

So I think that signal is really important that we remain committed and it is very important that this house also rallies behind that and and supports us in that respect. I fully agree with your more critical point on the lack of a language to deal with that new reality and new or old partners that are sometimes part of the problem um and not part of the solution. I I think we have um always been and we will continue to be a champion of international humanitarian law. We will continue to advocate for the prevention of violations also with our best partners economically and politically and and I think we need to become more forceful in that respect. And we will need to continue to call for accountability also because um there need to be consequences when IHL is is not respected.

Um many different points were mentioned obviously um the crisis in in our neighborhood are incredibly important for us. We are allocating very significant amounts of humanitarian aid funding also to the crisis in Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East. If I'm not mistaken Ukraine and Syria are the two top allocations that we have um this year. Um so we're certainly investing humanitarian aid also in these crisis. Um I can fully reassure you on aid um on the issue of aid deviation sort of the risk of aid deviations.

We have very strong accountability systems in place. We work with certified partners the UN NGOs. Um they all have to go through a quality control system and um we have colleagues in the field also who keep a close eye on the delivery of the aid making sure that um the aid goes to the right beneficiaries. Um private sector involvement is incredibly important I think in the current context. Private sector can give us access to all sorts of capacities all sorts of technology that is not readily available in the humanitarian aid community um and therefore they have a service to provide in certain cases.

But they can also give us access to funding. They can also contribute and they can also donate. So this platform that we're planning to set up together with the World Economic Forum will look at private sector engagement in all of its facets including the paid services but also the donations and and how to better foster that basically. Um difficult choices to be made and how do we prioritize um there's not enough time to go into any sort of detail but what the communication tries to do is to reassure that we will continue to work on a needs-based approach a non-political approach. So we really try to see where the needs are most important um and try to um dedicate the humanitarian funding to this.

Um that links to the question on on how do we deliver within that context of less funding more needs. And that is where the second P really becomes very important. We need to push the humanitarian system to perform better to become more cost-effective. Um humanitarian supply chains account for between 60 and 80% of all expenditure on the humanitarian aid side. So we cannot continue with the current fragmentation.

Um there's too many partners working in isolated ways. We we need to bring that together. There need to be more joined-up approaches. And that applies to supply chain but it equally applies to all common services um the car fleets um all of the common services that these partners need. And on the attacks on humanitarian workers just to finish off it is an absolute priority for my commissioner.

Um we have this Protect Aid Workers program um which was started on a geographical basis. It's a great success there's an enormous demand and we will now roll it out um globally. I will um stop there but happy to continue the conversation in the future.

02:03:21 - 02:03:23

Robert Biedroń

Thank you very much, Billy Herman.

02:03:23 - 02:05:32

Martin Billi Hermann

Well, thank you very much, Chair. I'd like Hans, very, very interested also in continuing the conversation. But just to say, to thank the honorable members for what I think some raising some really, really important points and raising some important questions. And in many ways also sort of putting their fingers also on what's, let's be honest, what are difficult questions and what are dilemmas in some of this. Hans covered most of it.

I just wanted to address the question that was raised by the honorable member Udo Bullmann on this thing about changing the tone to partners. And the need to put this in some ways on the agenda to point to what I tried to say, that one of the things that we will be looking to do is to include more systematically in our discussions this whole question of international humanitarian law violations, access restrictions, etc. I mean, these whole humanitarian contexts, putting them more systematically on the agenda in our political security and human rights dialogues and in diplomatic démarches. So I suppose that's an indication of an ambition to put these topics on the agenda, also when it's sometimes not always easy to do so. And then the last point I just wanted to address was the point that you raised, Chair, on this whole question of accountability on violations of international humanitarian law, just to emphasize how seized the High Representative and Vice-President Kaja Kallas is also of this issue around accountability and international humanitarian law.

And I suppose, I mean, we don't have perfect mechanisms for addressing this, and it's clear that the multilateral system is under a tremendous amount of pressure. What we can do is we can speak out, and then we can try and use the systems and the mechanisms that exist also within the multilateral system to put these things on the agenda, to try to hold perpetrators accountable, however fallible and however imperfect these mechanisms might be. But then do also, I think as Hans also alluded to in the beginning, try to see how we can help reform, how we can help reform some of these mechanisms that are not working well enough today.

02:05:32 - 02:07:14

Robert Biedroń

Thank you very much. It's extremely difficult, as you know, Udo just mentioned the agreement with Emirates on so. Anyway, this discussion and this presentation will shape the future of humanitarian aid, so it was very important. We'll be working on this proposal together, and thank you very much for your presentation. And with this, we go to point number ten, any other businesses?

Are there any other businesses? If not, I will be very happy because we need to run to point eleven. Colleagues, next ordinary DEVE meeting will take place on Thursday, 25th of June, in the morning. Before that, we will have a joint meeting with the ENVI and PECH Committee for an exchange of views with the EU Commissioner for Oceans, Costas Kadis, on the EU Ocean Pact, one year after the UN Ocean Conference. Our three committees had a joint mission to UNOC, which took place in Nice in June 2025, and the EU launched its Ocean Pact there.

This joint exchange of views will take place on Tuesday, 23rd of June, from 8:30 until 9:45 in the room ANTALL 4Q2, and you're all invited. And in 30 seconds, we will start our coordinators' meeting in camera. So all non-authorized people, please leave the room now. Thank you very much.

02:14:40 - 02:15:31

Speaker 20

Good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to this meeting of the Committee on Development. I would like to ask you to take your seats. We have a very busy agenda today. First of all, I would like to check the quorum.

I see that we have a quorum, so we can start our meeting. The first item on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda. Are there any comments or any changes to the agenda? I see no comments, so the agenda is adopted. The second item is the approval of the minutes of the meeting of the 21st of March 2023.

Are there any comments on the minutes? I see no comments, so the minutes are approved. The third item is the Chair's announcements. I would like to inform you that the meeting is being webstreamed. I would also like to inform you that the interpretation is available in the following languages: German, English, French, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish, Swedish, Czech, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Croatian.