Haiti quake prompts Brussels to revive EU aid force idea

(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission on Wednesday relaunched the idea of creating an EU crisis response force, notably to increase Europe's "visibility" on the ground, following criticism after the Haiti quake.

Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso intends to ask his new team, once it is in place on February 10, "for proposals to improve further the EU's crisis response capability," to help deal with humanitarian and natural disasters, his spokeswoman said.

This would include "a central framework for rapid EU reaction, fully coordinated with the member states," Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen told reporters in Brussels.

The idea would allow the European Union to benefit from a "higher visibility" for its efforts, she underlined.

The scheme will be one of the priorities of the incoming commission, the spokeswoman assured, stressing that "conclusions will also be drawn" following the response to the devastating earthquake that killed at least 150,000 people in the Caribbean nation.

Many European officials, notably in France, have criticised the lack of visibility of EU efforts on the ground compared to the United States.

That is despite the fact that European nations and the EU itself have been the biggest donors since the January 12 disaster with 430 million euros (605 million dollars), substantially more than the United States and Canada are offering.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, a British baroness, has also been criticised for not having rushed to Haiti to assess the situation and giving the initial impression that she did not grasp the scale of the event.

The idea of a European rapid reaction force for such catastrophes is not new. It has been raised several times in recent years but with no concrete result so far.

Through his new initiative Barroso is seeking to respond to a call made on Monday by European foreign ministers assembled in Brussels.

They gave Ashton the task of considering the idea of an eventual intervention force.

France has led the appeal, complaining openly about the low European profile in such cases.

"What was certainly missing was (EU) visibility right away, a flag right away, EU police badges next to the US ones," France's European Affairs Minister Pierre Lellouche declared on Monday.