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Nearly 50 days after the earthquake which caused more than 220,000 deaths in Haiti, Catherine Ashton is finally responding to criticism that she is not doing enough. The EU High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs will now visit Port-au-Prince on 3rd March, reports*El País*. The Spanish daily notes that Ashton had previously justified her refusal to travel to the site of the disaster on the basis that her visit would take up "valuable space when planes were unable to land." On 1 March, she announced that now is "the right moment to go to Haiti." The announcement coincided with a pledge to send 3 million euros of emergency aid to Chile, which was also struck by an earthquake on 27 February. In its editorial, the Spanish daily describes Ashton's performance to date as "worrying." Her "first steps have been worse than disappointing," insists El País, which emphasises her "failure to react" to the humanitarian crisis in Haiti, where the EU has played "no visible role."
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