EU praises Kuwait as exemplary country for its efforts to help Syrian people

The European Union's top-most humanitarian aid official has expressed the European people's gratitude to His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah for hosting the first international humanitarian pledging conference for the Syrian people last year (Kuwait 1) and now the second one (Kuwait2) on Wednesday. "Kuwait is an exemplary country among the countries in the Gulf because of its generosity and because of its commitment which it has shown to the international community's collective response," EU Commissioner for international cooperation, humanitarian aid and crisis response, Kristalina Georgieva, told the Kuwait news agency, KUNA, in an interview today ahead of her departure for Kuwait.She praised "the leadership and generosity that Kuwait demonstrated at a very difficult moment for the Syrian people and the whole region." The European Commission will make a pledge in Kuwait 2 of 160 million euro (USD 280 mn) , she said and added that "I am confident that our EU member states will make pledges that exceed the pledges made at Kuwait 1." "It is very important that we find a way as an international community to work together and find a way to coordinate our efforts. The leadership of Kuwait brings us together in a transparent way for us to show how we contribute and how our efforts collectively act, this is more important than the money that Kuwait 2 brings," she stressed.Before joining the European Commission in February 2010, Georgeiva who is from Bulgaria held various positions at the World Bank.The EU Commissioner said that since she went to Kuwait in January last year for the first donors' conference on Syria , "unfortunately the humanitarian crisis has dramatically deepened." She noted that the number of people impacted has increased almost four times in this one year and those displaced and those living as refugees has increased five times.Georgeiva stated that while the international community has shown generosity to the Syrian people, the conference last year raised USD 1.5 billion and that the EU has exceeded the pledges that it made at Kuwait 1."For almost ten million Syrians, today without help, it is very difficult to survive. And this year we had the worst winter in a century hitting the region. We in Europe have raised almost 2 billion euro (USD 2.7 bn) to help the Syrians and the Syrian people," she said."We are going to Kuwait with the reality that conditions have worsened and hence we have to double our efforts" she said.The EU Commissioner said Kuwait has backed up UN efforts to help the Syrian people, made it possible, for example, for polio immunisation campaign to reach one million children. Commenting on the upcoming peace conference on Syria, Geneva 2, she lamented that the civil war in Syria is getting from bad to worse. "The fragmentation of fighting groups has deepened and the fighting has intensified. It is in this context that any effort for peace must take place. We must pursue every chance to end the conflict. We need everybody to come to this realisation that there is no military solution to the Syrian conflict. The only solution is through negotiations," she said.