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The European Union's humanitarian aid and development aid programmes are being compromised by EU debts, and budget cuts forecast for 2015. EurActiv France reports.

Europe's unpaid bills are accumulating, and with them fears for development aid and humanitarian aid.

Since 2011, the European budget has been amassing unpaid bills, which continue to rise in value. The budget is currently 26 billion euro in arrears, 23 billion of which are owed to the cohesion policy. This impacts the whole spectrum of European politics.

Unpaid bills

"Unpaid bills in the budget category of "Global Europe", which includes development aid and humanitarian aid, have reached 1 billion euro," according to a source close to the dossier.

Jacek Dominik, the European Commissioner in charge of the budget, has also raised the alarm. In a speech on 24 September, the Polish Commissioner said that the debts of the Financing Instrument for Development Cooperation (DCI) had accumulated to a value of "14 million euro since July".

The European Commission says that these arrears relate to payments to the Multi-Donor Food Security Trust Fund for 2009-2018 in Burma.

The lack of funds has also forced the EU to roll back some humanitarian aid programmes. "Some projects in the Sahel region of Africa, the Horn of Africa and Haiti have been postponed," the budget Commissioner announced.

Paring back humanitarian aid

According to Oxfam, the lack of funding will also affect other humanitarian aid programmes. "The impact of the EUs current constraints on humanitarian aid is already being felt by the beneficiary countries. For example, aid to Iraqi refugees in Jordan has been reduced. We are sending less aid to Yemen (housing, food security, etc.)" says Hilary Jeune, the head of European policy at Oxfam.

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Aid programmes hit hard by EU budget woes