Commission or European Union, but kept its ECHO abbreviation. After the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, the Barroso Commission accepted the prize money on behalf of the EU and allocated it to a new initiative called Children of Peace. Approximately €2 million was set aside for the Children of Peace projects in 2013. It was increased to €4 million in 2014. Mandate and Principles DG ECHO's mandate is to provide emergency assistance and relief (in the form of goods and services) to victims of conflict and natural or man-made disasters outside the EU. Its civil protection mandate also extends to disaster prevention and preparedness actions, response and post-crisis operations inside the EU and worldwide. European humanitarian aid and EU funded humanitarian operations are based on compliance with international law, in particular international humanitarian law, and the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. Humanity means that human suffering must be addressed wherever it is found, with particular attention to the most vulnerable; neutrality means that humanitarian aid must not favour any side in an armed conflict or other dispute; impartiality means that humanitarian aid must be provided solely on the basis of need, without discrimination; and independence means the autonomy of humanitarian objectives from political, economic, military or other objectives. In 2007, at the initiative of Commissioner Louis Michel, the European Commission adopted a "European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid" to constitute the first European political text of reference on humanitarian aid. NGOs participated actively to the drafting of the European Consensus and it can be considered "the most comprehensive text and the nearest common position to NGOs". The European Consensus reaffirms the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence. It also stipulates "humanitarian aid is not a management tool for crises management". Following its adoption, the Consensus has served as the reference point on the role of humanitarian aid in the EU's broader external action. This was reaffirmed at an event marking the ten years of the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid in 2017. This is also clearly acknowledged in the Commission Communication on the EU's humanitarian action: new challenges, same principles, which was adopted in March 2021. Additionally, civil protection was adopted as a part of ECHO's mandate to ensure better cooperation and protection during disaster among third and regional countries and international organisations. Primary and secondary law Since the Lisbon Treaty came