The Uniqueness of the EU Humanitarian Aid Policy between Sovereignty and Humanitarian Concerns

Abstract:

This article investigates the European Union Humanitarian Aid Policy's (EUHAP's) institutional shape. A theoretical approach referring to the literature on sovereignty is adopted, hypothesizing that the EUHAP has ideal institutional settings to cope with European Union (EU) integration and Member States' concerns about the maintenance of sovereignty. Challenging the formalist approach assuming sovereignty as an organized hypocrisy whereof states are the incontrovertible promoters, the article shows how EUHAP's implementation, rather than negotiation, indicates evidence of arguable sovereign control by Member States over the EU's activity. The enhancing of EU's competences within EUHAP's implementation, sometimes going beyond what has been agreed with Member States within negotiations, signals the inability of EUHAP's sui generis institutional setting to combine the advantages of supranational cooperation with an absence of risk for Member States' sovereignty. EUHAP's institutional uniqueness must depend on reasons associated with the satisfaction of humanitarian aid priorities rather than on the EU's internal logics.