MEPs adopted a compromise agreement between Parliament, Council and Commission allowing for adoption in first reading of the regulation establishing the 1 billion euro food facility.
Aim of the €1 billion
The Community will finance measures aimed at supporting a rapid and direct response to the volatile food prices in developing countries, addressing primarily the period between emergency aid and medium- to long-term development cooperation.
Gay Mitchell said in the debate in Brussels "The food facility began as a proposal from the Commission, in the light of the rising food prices that provoked riots in some countries, to use EUR one billion in leftover agricultural subsidy money to relieve the situation in developing countries through agricultural inputs and emergency safety nets. The money was, in this form, expected to be wholly additional to existing development funds. Now, five months later, we have our billion, but it is in an entirely different form than that originally envisaged."
More on the €1 billion
The instrument aims to improve access to agricultural inputs and services, including fertilizer and seed, as well as so-called safety-net measures, aiming to preserve or improve agricultural production and to satisfy the basic food needs of the most vulnerable people.
To optimise the utility and impact of this Regulation, resources, says the Parliament shall be concentrated on a limited list of high-priority target countries, in coordination with other donors and other development partners through relevant needs-assessments made available by specialised and international organisations such as those of the UN system, in consultation with partner countries.
Parliament succeeded in securing funding for agricultural aid for developing countries: it was possible to maintain the total amount of €1 billion that had been proposed for "a facility for rapid response to soaring prices in developing countries" over the three-year period 2008-10. The funds will come from three sources: the flexibility instrument, the emergency aid reserve and the redeployment of funds within the external relations heading.
€760 million is "fresh money", including, in 2008, mobilisation of the Emergency Aid Reserve still available in this year’s budget, amounting to €22 million, and an additional sum of €240 million – this raising of the funding ceiling of the Emergency Aid Reserve (EAR) in 2008 required unanimity in Council and an adjustment of the inter-institutional agreement. €78 million will come from the 2009 EAR. The institutions also agreed on the use of the flexibility instrument for 2009 for €420 million.
The final €240 million will come from the re-deployment of funds in the (external relations) stability instrument which had not already been earmarked for a particular goal.
