Brussels, 14/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - With its ruling in Case T-576/08 of Wednesday 13 April, the EU General Court cancelled part of EC Regulation No 983/08 relating to the funding of the European Programme of Food Aid to the Most Deprived (PEAD), which was attacked by Germany for no longer coming under common agricultural policy (CAP) but under social policies which fall within the scope of member state competence. The ruling, which does not question the effect of this regulation and therefore the allocations already paid, has been subject to much comment.
The PEAD was established in 1987 within the CAP framework, essentially providing for the EU to have the possibility to dip into agricultural intervention stocks to meet the needs of the most deprived. The programme could also finance the purchase of foodstuffs on the market, when these were not available in stocks. For a number of years now, due in particular to CAP reforms, intervention stocks have shrunk to the point that they have become almost non-existent, and the PEAD now works essentially through the market purchase of products.
In the case in hand, Germany, backed by Sweden, affirmed that the PEAD had become purely a social policy instrument of the Community and that the regulation relating to its financing lacks a legal base under the CAP. It is felt, in particular, that the food aid programme is not compatible with the common market organisation (CMO) regulation in the agricultural sector, which only authorises the purchase of foodstuffs off the market as a complementary measure in the event of temporary shortages of products in intervention stocks - but that, now, such purchases have become the rule.
The Commission, backed by France, Italy, Spain and Poland, opposed this interpretation setting out different arguments pertaining, inter alia, to the notion of temporary unavailability of intervention stocks, “which should be understood in the context of an overall examination carried out over several years” and to the fact that reduction or short-term suppression of the PEAD would result in this programme being no longer available to the charity organisations that depend upon it, thus bringing into question market stabilisation objectives and the guarantee of a high social protection level set out in the plan.
In its ruling, the General Court nonetheless points out that, in the case in hand, it is not the legality of the mechanism used for attributing resources to the benefit of the most deprived persons that is being questioned but the fact that the plan for the 2009 financial year as set out in the regulation is mainly based on additional purchases of market products. The ruling therefore only cancels the provisions providing for allocations to be made for such purchases, namely Article 2 and Annex II of the regulation under attack.
French Minister for European Affairs Laurent Wauquiez was among those who reacted to this ruling given that it rekindles uncertainty regarding the future of a programme which, with a budget of €500 million annually, provides close to half of the food distributed to 13 million deprived people throughout the EU, through some 240 food banks. He said: “We shall put pressure on the Commission immediately so that it proposes other ways to improve this programme in the future”. President Barroso had, for his part, made a strong appeal in September 2010 and in February this year for food banks to be able to continue receiving European funding (see EUROPE 10317 and 10224). (F.G./transl.jl)