{"id":77261,"date":"2026-05-19T11:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/77261\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T11:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:02:14","slug":"kallas-pushes-to-shift-eu-development-aid-away-from-countries-backing-russia-or-iran-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/77261\/","title":{"rendered":"Kallas pushes to shift EU development aid away from countries backing Russia or Iran \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

Access to future EU aid funding is likely to be tied to preferential treatment for European firms and withheld from backers of the likes of Russia and Iran, EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas has said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we want to be\u00a0a geopolitical actor, we\u00a0have to\u00a0be more strategic about this,\u00a0which\u00a0means that we\u00a0have to\u00a0match our tools\u00a0\u2013\u00a0humanitarian aid, trade, security and\u00a0defence\u00a0partnerships\u00a0\u2013\u00a0with the needs of our partners,\u201d\u00a0Kallas told reporters\u00a0ahead<\/a> of an EU development ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday (18 May).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd plus, if a partner\u00a0supports\u00a0Russia or Iran, then it\u00a0has to\u00a0be flexible, so that we can realign our engagement in this case,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Official\u00a0development\u00a0assistance\u00a0(ODA)\u00a0fell to\u00a0$174.3bn [\u20ac150bn]\u00a0in 2025\u00a0\u2013 a 23\u00a0percent\u00a0drop \u2013 according to data published\u00a0in April\u00a0<\/a>by the Paris-based\u00a0Organisation\u00a0for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The drop, which was driven by a 56.9 percent cut in US aid spending, is the largest on record.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, while the cut in US aid\u00a0allowed\u00a0Germany\u00a0to overtake the US as the world\u2019s largest single donor, ODA from the EU institutions dropped by 13.8 percent, and by 9.8 percent from the 23 EU countries who are members of the OECD, dropping aid from the EU to\u00a0its lowest level since 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0question of what aid policy should look like was on the agenda at April\u2019s IMF and World Bank spring meetings while the\u00a0OECD\u00a0hosted\u00a0its own two-day summit on the issue in Paris\u00a0last week. <\/p>\n

It is likely to mean more investment-focused\u00a0programmes\u00a0such as the EU\u2019s Global Gateway initiative\u00a0which aim to combine\u00a0small amounts\u00a0of EU budget funding\u00a0with private sector cash.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While aid and investment\u00a0have\u00a0slumped,\u00a0the World Bank estimates<\/a> that between 2022 and 2024, \u2018developing\u2019 countries paid out\u00a0$741bn more in principal and interest on their external debt\u00a0than they received in new financing, the largest gap in at least 50 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kallas\u2019s hints at leveraging aid and trade are not new.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Access to future EU aid funding is likely to be tied to preferential treatment for European firms and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[140],"tags":[280,7932,301,43726,442,43724,7930,299,43725,7931,300],"class_list":["post-77261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kaja-kallas","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-identifier4293","tag-identifier4308","tag-identifier4624","tag-kaja-kallas","tag-namedevelopment","tag-nameiran","tag-namerussia","tag-termcodedevelopment","tag-termcodeiran","tag-termcoderussia"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116600907038250667","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}