Brussels, 27/08/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the European Commission is to propose at its weekly meeting the creation of a budgetary line to help the victims of natural disasters in the EU. It is to confirm that the German regions hit by recent flooding will have the possibility of receiving EUR 1.2 billion from Structural Funds under the "flexibility reserve" of 4% for 2000-2006 in favour of Germany. Furthermore, the Commission is expected to announce aid for candidate countries affected by the bad weather (Czech Republic and Slovakia) and officially adopt the decision which was already approved by the management committee for paying EUR 516 million to German cereal farmers in the form of early direct payments (see EUROPE of 24 August, p.6). According to the first estimates available to the Commission, the damage caused by flooding is estimated at EUR 15 billion in Germany and EUR 2 billion in Austria.
The Commission is also expected to be sensitive to the arguments put forward by Michaele Schreyer, who considers that a new budgetary line in favour of victims of natural disasters would be far better than the disaster aid fund evoked during the meeting on 18 August in Berlin. Unlike the fund, that would require changes to the financial regulations, the budgetary line would give greater flexibility as it could be set up from this year on through a correcting letter to the budget and could contain more than the EUR 500 million initially earmarked under the special fund. Furthermore, it is fresh money that would be directly available to help populations in difficulty. Nonetheless, the definition of "natural disaster" should be accurately defined. The notion of "natural disaster" should be placed in a framework to avoid Community aid being called for each time a small river overflows its banks somewhere in Europe. The choice of budgetary line can also be explained by the fact that it prevents blocking money while facilitating Community assistance. While the use of Structural aid remains limited to infrastructures, the budgetary line will allow direct aid to be given to the inhabitants of disaster areas.
The Structural Funds also provide the possibility (in addition to the 4% payment of funding for the whole of the financial programming period 2000-2006 for any one country) for Germany and Austria to amend their programmes in 2003, but this is on the assumption that the other Länder agree as they would thus be giving up part of the funding earmarked to their needs.
The other possibilities provided for Member States include: - the possibility for Member States to amend rural development programmes (especially for the rehabilitation of agricultural production affected by natural disasters) and to increase the rate of Community cofunding for these programmes; - the rapid approval by the Commission of State aid to compensate for damage caused by flooding; - and offering Member States a certain amount of flexibility in the application of public procurement rules. Furthermore, the Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) is currently working on improving its weather forecast system and is undertaking to adjust its flood simulation system to the regions of the Elbe and the Danube.
Measures are also to be announced for candidate countries hit by flooding. The Czech Republic has estimated the damage caused by bad weather this summer at between EUR 2 and 3 billion (as opposed to EUR 45 million for the other country hit, Slovakia): EUR 48 million under the ISPA programme for 2002, plus EUR 9.75 million in PHARE 2003 funding in favour of the Czech Republic; EUR 28 million from the ISPA 2002 budget for Slovakia. These countries could also receive funding from the budgets attributed to them under the pre-accession agricultural fund, SAPARD.