Earthquake in Haiti: European commitment in 2011Over 220,000 dead; 1.7 million people left homeless; infrastructures, schools and hospitals rendered for the most part unusable or razed to the ground by the fury of the quake. A year after the earthquake that struck Haiti (12 January 2010), and in particular its capital, Port-au-Prince, with total damage estimated at 7.8 billion dollars, a figure equivalent to Haiti’s total GDP, the European Commission has conducted a review of what has been achieved over these last twelve months, emphasizing the “innumerable problems that still remain to be tackled”, ranging from the cholera epidemic to long-term reconstruction. It has also spelt out the measures that the EU and its member states are about to implement in the stricken island in 2011. “The interventions conducted in the months following the disaster were concentrated on the basic needs of the population: water, food, housing and medical assistance”. The EU Commission points out: “The obstacles to immediate, medium and long term aid are many. The scale of the disaster stretched to breaking point the national health infrastructures and weakened the country’s political power”. The Commission alone will allocate to Haiti 90 million euro between January and August 2011, thus bringing the total of its contribution to 120 million. Total EU funding will be around 500 million euro, a figure that will be doubled by adding the pledges made by member states. According to the Commission “much still remains to be done” and four priority areas of intervention have been identified: multi-sectorial assistance to the victims of the quake; healthcare and provisioning; reduction of the risk of new disasters; organization of immediate response to any further disasters.Six months’ presidency of the Council: the debut of Viktor OrbanGovernance and stability of the EU, enlargement to the Balkans, energy supplies, strategy for the integration of Roma populations and law on the freedom of the media: these were the main issues touched on by Viktor Orban, Hungarian premier, during his face to face with the President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso, which concluded the meeting between the new six months’ Presidency of the EU Council and the team of European Commissioners headed by Barroso on 7 January. “The euro appears today as the most important instrument of European integration”, said Orban with regard to economic governance. On the enlargement of the frontiers of the EU the Hungarian premier said that “it was not just a question of opening the doors to Croatia but of the overall vision we have of the future of the Union”. On the controversial media law, for which the Commission has asked for official clarifications, Orban emphasized: “On this issue we have been subjected to many attacks. But the Commission will be able to examine our draft and I am convinced that it will be reassured about the fact that it respects EU laws and principles. If that is not the case, we are ready to find a solution together”. Barroso for his part stressed that the government in Budapest “has done everything possible to prepare the six months’ Hungarian presidency to the best”. He then recalled the priority of the economic issues and declared: “The freedom of the press and the pluralism of the media are essential principles for the Union”, and it on this basis that “the new Hungarian law will be evaluated”.Culture: “digital renaissance” for the cultural heritage of the EUThe hope for a new “digital renaissance” for European culture, promoted by the EU and by member states, using the potential of the internet and placing the continent’s heritage on the web, is expressed by the Committee of experts (Maurice Lévy, Elisabeth Niggemann and Jacques de Decker) set up by the European Union to analyse the theme of culture in relation to the wider EU strategy of the “Digital Agenda”. The Committee’s report, presented earlier this week by Commissioners Neelie Kroes and Androulla Vassiliou, contains “an urgent appeal to member states to intensify their commitment to the digitalization and placing online of all the collections they hold in libraries, archives and museums” and emphasises “the benefits presented by a greater accessibility of the culture and knowledge of Europe”. The report also lists the potential “economic benefits of digitalization, also through public-private partnerships, for the development of innovative services in some sectors such as tourism, research and education”. “The placing online of the collections of our museums and libraries – said Neelie Kroes – not only permits the richness of the culture and history of Europe to be more widely shown, but also offers new benefits at the level of education, innovation and the creation of new economic activities”. The initiatives already launched in this field include not least Europeana (www.europeana.eu), the online library which provides access to over 15 million digitalized books, maps, photographs, films, paintings and musical compositions.
