NNinety percent of Syrians live in poverty, sixty percent are dependent on food aid, and seven million people have fled the civil war to neighboring countries. These were the sober facts that EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell listed on Thursday at the start of the seventh “Conference on the Future of Syria and the Region”, which was supposed to collect money for further humanitarian aid. Year after year the situation has gotten worse, in February the heavy earthquake struck the population an additional blow. For Europe, however, the country is no longer the focus of attention – the war in Ukraine has shifted priorities. This was also reflected in the willingness to donate.
For the European Union as an institution, Borrell promised only 560 million euros on Thursday for 2024; this year and last year it was one billion euros more. He combined this with clear criticism of Syria’s re-admission to the Arab League in early May – this was aimed directly at the ministers of Arab states who had come to Brussels. One also follows how Turkey establishes direct contacts with the Syrian regime. “This is not the path that the European Union would have chosen,” Borrell said. It will soon be seen whether Damascus will accept UN Resolution 2254 from 2015, which describes a path to peace in the country with a new constitution and free elections. In any case, the EU will not change its policy in the foreseeable future and will continue to impose targeted sanctions against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Addressing Turkey, he said: “The EU will not support organized returns to Syria unless there are “rock-hard guarantees that these returns will be voluntary, safe and dignified, and under international supervision.”
In total, more than seventy countries and international organizations made commitments worth several billion euros on Thursday. In the previous year it was 6.4 billion, two thirds of which were raised by the EU Commission and the EU member states. For Germany, the Minister of State in the Foreign Office Tobias Lindner (Greens) pledged 1.05 billion euros, as in the previous year. Incidentally, these amounts do not relate to the care of more than three million Syrian refugees in Turkey; there is a special financing arrangement for this. According to the EU Commission, it is working on a proposal for how programs that would otherwise expire by 2025/26 at the latest can continue to be funded.
Criticism of UN aid in Syria
The United Nations Food Program (WFP) had already set the tone before the start of the conference. The organization has announced that it will no longer provide food aid to 5.5 million Syrians, but only three million. The organization cited “an unprecedented funding crisis” as the reason. A similar move in 2015 was instrumental in attracting hundreds of thousands of Syrians to Germany.
In the countries that have taken in refugees, the pressure to bring them back is increasing. This applies above all to Turkey and Lebanon. The acting Lebanese Minister for Social Affairs, Hector Hajjar, accused the Europeans of refusing to return the refugees. The politician, who is one of the agitators, has also spoken of a “crime against Lebanon”. Hajjar’s criticism, however, follows a line that is also shared by moderate voices: If the West considers the conflict to be unsolvable in the foreseeable future, it cannot demand that Lebanon leave the refugees in Lebanon until the end of the day.
Not only the UN aid in the host countries is under criticism, but also that in Syria itself. Experts, diplomats and even officials have stomach ache because the Assad regime is abusing the UN aid for its own purposes. It is now one of the most important sources of income. Critics say it is prolonging the life of an inhumane regime in the name of humanity. At the same time, Russia, the regime’s protecting power, has continued to restrict aid deliveries via Turkey. Moscow is now threatening again to block a continuation with its veto in the UN Security Council. The current permit expires on July 10.
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