Exclusive: How Europe is planning for life after USAID

Publicly, the European Commission says it “cannot fill the gap” as the United States leaves its role as the Western world’s top donor of foreign aid. But behind-the-scenes internal analysis from earlier this year, seen by Devex, shows Europe’s top civil servants discussing which U.S. funding cuts will most affect the European Union, assessing the possibility for the EU to fill at least some needs, and even sketching out how to go about it. In early February, the commission’s secretary-general, Ilze Juhansone, asked departments from the EU executive to identify which actions affected by the U.S. funding retreat were vital for EU interests. In response, the director-general of the commission’s development department, Koen Doens, identified three key topics: health, migration, and fragility. Health In a draft reply to Juhansone dated mid-February — after the initial aid freeze but before the Trump administration confirmed it would cut 83% of USAID’s programs — Doens wrote that global health has long been a top U.S. priority. He cited its work on disaster relief, HIV/AIDS prevention, combatting public health threats such as pandemic influenza, and funding for initiatives such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. “As a result of current developments, the EU should work together with the rest of the global community in the following order of priority,” Doens wrote, listing: “1. Programmes addressing acute and time limited disease outbreaks with short term pandemic or major epidemic potential. … 2. Programmes aimed at strengthening pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPR) over the medium to longer term. … 3. Programmes addressing infectious diseases with longer term pandemic or major epidemic potential such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), malaria and other tropical diseases.” On disease outbreaks, Doens wrote that without U.S. funding, the likes of H5N1 influenza and viruses Ebola, mpox, or Marburg, as well as other as-yet-unidentified pathogens, could pose “a serious threat to European health security.” “It’s not just a huge loss of budget but also expertise from CDC and USAID to prepare and deal with global-health threats,” the director-general wrote in reference to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has since suffered mass layoffs. On pandemic preparedness, Doens wrote that the U.S. has helped fund surveillance laboratories in countries such as Kenya, Guinea, and Cameroon, designed to protect against pathogens and pandemics while also supporting local health systems. But here, he depicted an opportunity for the EU to step up. The U.S. funding “has often not been as efficient as expected but enabled to maintain a functional level,” Doens wrote, “while the current epidemiological context—with faster recurrent events—calls for increasing the surge capacity of these laboratories.” By contrast, “the EU holds significant capacities for identification and diagnosis of high impact pathogens and has developed very advanced testing systems including suitcase based mobile laboratories for deployment within 24 hours that could supplant the failing US support more effectively,” Doens wrote. And lastly, on how to address longer-term infectious diseases, Doens pointed to the Global Fund, which relied on the U.S. for around 30% of its funding and now faces a steep climb to reach its $18 billion replenishment target this year. “To be seen how much the US stays invested,” Doens wrote. “Here again, an opportunity and necessity for the EU to cover up.” Migration Another fear in Brussels is that the U.S. funding withdrawal could exacerbate poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, and instability around the world, leading to greater irregular migration to the EU. Doens’ analysis points to people moving north from the likes of Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and South Sudan. He also focused on Afghanistan, which received $886 million in U.S. assistance in 2023, mostly humanitarian aid. “In 2024, Afghans ranked second in asylum applications in the EU,” Doens wrote, “with more than 87,000 asylum requests lodged and a recognition rate of 58% as of November 2024.” Fragility The third area where EU interests are likely to be directly imperiled by the drop off in U.S. aid is in fragile states, Doens wrote, noting these receive about 80% of USAID’s portfolio. “The aid freeze could result in a weakening of ties and connections with countries that have long standing partnerships with the US may also affect the EU (including in relation to disinformation and intelligence gathering) including support to custom and security personnel),” he wrote. “The USAID portfolio is also a key element of the Humanitarian Development Peace nexus approach the US had embraced and under an integrated approach to addressing root causes of fragility, this central part is now missing.” Over to EU? Overall, despite the prospect of greater EU action in some sectors, Doens briefed his superiors that it was impossible to completely replace U.S. contributions. Asked by Juhansone to assess whether EU states or other international donors can be called upon to contribute, together with the EU, or instead of the EU, Doens responded: “We should expect that Member States will consider contributing however we should be aware of ongoing policy shifts in certain Member States and/or development aid budget cuts. “It will be impossible to replace US across all areas, hence difficult choices will need to be made by donors and addressed in a coordinated manner.” Major donors such as France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the commission itself have all made steep aid cuts in recent years. And the commission — the Western world’s third-largest aid donor in 2023 behind the United States and Germany — has made a publicly avowed shift toward a self-serving role for its foreign aid, increasingly using it to try and forge new markets for European companies. For now, the commission has updated its recommended “lines to take” in public on the U.S. aid cuts that it circulated to EU states in March. The basic message — that the EU “cannot fill the gap left by others” — remains the same. However, the latest document, seen by Devex, now concludes with a new section, tailored “for US interlocutors in particular.” It reads: • “The EU and the US have long been strategic partners on development aid and humanitarian assistance. This continues to be both our responsibility and our interest. • Providing foreign and humanitarian aid does contribute to making America safer, stronger, and more prosperous, including by preventing destabilisation and mitigating risks. • The gap left by the US will benefit competitors and rivals (e.g., China and Russia), which will use the opportunity to further occupy the space in developing countries and in multilateral organisations. • The EU recalls its strong commitment to multilateralism and the rules-based global order, and welcomes the opportunity to work together in a changing environment with all its partners including the US, as well as with the UN and its agencies in driving forward the internal reform process – the UN80 initiative – to ensure that the UN remains effective, cost-efficient and responsive.” The commission declined to comment on this story.