Abstract
International solidarity is routinely invoked as a normative cornerstone of humanitarian action, yet the concept remains analytically underdetermined and politically contested in political theory and humanitarian studies. This article conceptualises solidarity as a normative political category that claims shared responsibility and collective agency, that is, as a framework for structuring claims of obligation among collective actors, rather than as an expression of voluntary moral attitudes. Building on the literature on solidarity as a practice of boundary-drawing and obligation allocation, it examines how EU institutional narratives construct humanitarian solidarity in a documentary corpus of EU policy texts issued between 1996 and 2026. The article draws on interpretive Narrative Policy Analysis to examine how EU institutional documents articulate solidarity in humanitarian aid policy. It investigates three connected dimensions: the attribution of responsibility (who is expected to act), the prioritisation of humanitarian need (which contexts are recognised as requiring assistance), and the justification of humanitarian action (which actions are represented as legitimate). Applying this framework to EU humanitarian policy, the article reconstructs the EU’s narrative as a promoter of solidarity and principled humanitarian aid. The article first identifies the narrative structure through which EU institutions articulate humanitarian solidarity. Second, it examines how this narrative articulates the relationship between established humanitarian principles (neutrality, impartiality, independence) and the political obligations of solidarity. The analysis shows how the documents combine a politically bounded allocation of responsibilities (duty-bearers) among EU institutions and Member States with a universalistic representation of people affected by humanitarian crises as potential beneficiaries. The documents also present solidarity as operating alongside, rather than replacing, the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. It thus shows the coexistence of responsibilities organised internally between the EU and the Member States in terms of distributive solidarity and external, potentially universalistic, humanitarian responsibility.