Foreign Affairs Council (Development): Press remarks by High Representative Kaja Kallas upon arrival

Check against delivery!

Good morning, everybody.

So, today we have the FAC Development, and we are discussing first the future of external action, especially since development aid is really on decline, but we see that Europe is still the largest donor in the world of humanitarian aid and development aid. But if we want to be a geopolitical actor, we have to be more strategic about this. Which means that we have to match our tools - humanitarian aid, trade to security and defence partnerships - with the needs of our partners. But also to take into consideration our own interests, because to be a geopolitical actor it has to work that way.

Then, the second point that we will discuss is the Global Gateway. And of course, there as well, the resources are limited, which means that we have to be more strategic about this, where our input has the most impact, and also where it aligns with our interests. And also, if we have projects to support the countries, and actually it goes to our competitors, then we also have to see how we can look into this, that it does not work that way. And plus, if a partner supports Russia or Iran, then it has to be flexible, so that we can realign our engagement in this case.

And then finally we will discuss the impact of the Iran war. It is clear that it has an impact on the most vulnerable, and of course we also have to see what can we do about this. We are deepening our cooperation with the regional actors; Gulf countries, for example. But we are also supporting the UN in terms of really supporting those that are most vulnerable, because we see the energy prices rising, we see the inflation, we see also the crisis of fertilisers that impact many countries in the world and also might bring about famine. So, a lot of topics today for the FAC Development.