Brussels, 08/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - In Strasbourg on Thursday 7 July, MEPs demanded the scheme for distributing food to the most needy in the EU be restored (see EUROPE 10414, on the adoption of a resolution by the EP). This follows on from a decision by the Commission to reduce funding for the scheme from €500 million in 2011 to €113 million in 2012 after a ruling by the EU General Court.
During the debate before the vote on the resolution, Elisabeth Morin-Chartier (EPP, France) said she was “scandalised” at the latest Court of Justice decisions on food aid for the most deprived. “We are putting a question mark over food aid for the most needy for the coming two years”, she said.
On behalf of the S&D Group, Pervenche Berès said that the programme had become the victim of the success of agricultural policy, “which has exhausted stocks and which prevents their being rebuilt”. She pointed out that Article 9 of the Lisbon Treaty states that, in all European Union policy areas, tackling social exclusion must lie at the heart of the policies determined, the resources made available and the initiatives undertaken. She called on the Commission to “restore the budgetary resources of the scheme to provide food for the least well-off” and to make a clear commitment that “not a single cent should be removed from this scheme for the most in need in the financial perspectives”. Stéphane Le Foll (S&D, France) said that “the Commission's decision makes no political sense. It cannot be justified”, with demands on food banks continuing to rise. Rapporteur on the European Platform against Poverty and Social Exclusion Frédéric Daerden (Belgium) said that the Commission and member states could not ignore the strong stance of the EP where huge support was expressed for aid for the most deprived.
Marielle De Sarnez, speaking for the ALDE Group, regretted that the programme was under “serious threat”: only a fifth of the previous year's budget was to be allocated for 2012, and, for 2013, nothing was certain. “For the next two years, the Commission must act as swiftly as possible to put in place a transitional solution to maintain food aid. For the future, the EP hopes the Commission will implement a lasting arrangement, permanently establishing Europe's food security target set at around €500 million per year, the amount taking account of changes in food prices”. She also recommended action to “restrict speculation on raw materials so that food prices can be better controlled”.
UK MEP James Nicholson, for the ECR, sounded a different note. He suggested that the responsibility of the CAP was to produce food, but that that did not mean that farmers were the right people to distribute this aid.
For the Greens/EFA Group, Karima Delli (France) demanded that the Commission work with member states urgently to find a transitional solution in order to keep the €500 million budget. “Proper legislation should be put in place at European level to guarantee everyone a decent minimum income that would allow people to live in dignity, to have enough to eat and to have access to all the fundamental rights”, she added. José Bové (Greens/EFA, France) said that, if the scheme were to continue but, with the reduction of Community stocks, fall within the European Social Fund (ESF) from 2014, “more local aid arrangements” had to be found “bringing together the most needy and farmers who would provide local access to quality food”.
Commission responses. On the transitional solution, the Commission proposal on maintaining the scheme, dating from 2010, if adopted (it is still being held up in Council), would mean that €500 million could be released for 2013. In the long term, “we have decided that from 2014 funding for this programme will be taken from social funds” (meaning no longer from agricultural funds, to take account of the ruling by European judges). (G.B./L.C./transl.rt)