Brussels, 25/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - During the three-way meeting on Monday evening in Strasbourg, which discussed European solidarity funds for disasters, the Parliament and Council were both unopposed to the raising of EUR 1 bn for assisting the regions in Central Europe affected this summer by the bad weather. No formal decision has been reached because there are still a lot of problems that need sorting out: the Parliament wants to have its word on the content of the legal basis so that it is able to discuss the overall package (new inter-institutional agreement, financial mechanisms and fund allocation criteria), while Member States are currently in the middle of negotiations (at an ambassador level) to determine the field for application of the proposal (the kind of disasters that are included) and the threshold for the damage caused and which justify Community assistance (the Commission is proposing EUR 1 billion for damages or 0.5% of GDP).
The Parliament is expected to give its Opinion on the broad guidelines for the creation of this fund on 10 October. The Danish Presidency wants the General Affairs Council to come up with common guidelines by 21 October. On the following day, a concertation meeting will take place between the Council and the EP aimed at finding an agreement on the legal basis.
On Wednesday, Coreper discussed problems identified by the Budgetary Committee, such as the scope of the regulation (the Presidency was to suggest, as a compromise, only taking natural disasters into consideration and not environmental and technological disasters) or the threshold of damage caused so that a region may be eligible (at the request of a majority of delegations, the Presidency was to suggest considerably increasing this threshold, which would therefore be reached less often).