Over the last few decades international organisations, national governments, and governmental and private actors have all multiplied their efforts to limit the extent to which natural catastrophes, man-made atrocities and political and economic breakdowns affect civil populations. The European Union and Humanitarian Crises: Patterns of Intervention addresses the allocation of foreign aid within the framework of the European Union's Humanitarian Aid policy and analyses different Member States' intervention strategies designed to cope with these emergencies. Joining the debate about bilateral and multilateral allocation of foreign aid in crisis situations and exploring the cooperative actions undertaken by the European Union and its Member States to cope with them the book questions how the context of the crises themselves impacts on strategies of intervention and investigates how strategies change depending on the characteristics of the crisis.