European Union member governments agreed on Monday to spend one billion euros ($1.37 billion) of the EU's budget on food aid for Europe's neediest citizens for the next two years, though the deal foresees ending the programme in 2014. "The food aid scheme for the needy will be maintained in 2012 and 2013. This is a victory for European solidarity," French farm minister Bruno Le Maire told reporters in Brussels after the deal was announced.
France has led efforts within the EU to continue funding the scheme after 2011, but agreement had been blocked by Germany, Britain and others, who argued responsibility for social welfare policies should rest with national governments. The breakthrough came after Germany agreed to the continuation of the scheme for a further two years, in return for a pledge from France that EU funding for the scheme would end in 2014.
"We agree to recognise, along with Germany, that the conditions are not in place to continue this food aid from 2014," Le Maire said. The EU's farm commissioner said he was pleased ministers had decided to keep the programme going until 2014. "I am extremely happy that member states have resolved the problems that were blocking the Aid for the Needy scheme in 2012 and 2013," Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos said in a statement.
"As we have shown in recent weeks, the European Commission wants to remain a committed partner for the charities involved in the scheme." A Commission official said the deal to keep the scheme running until 2014 would be formally approved by EU ministers in the coming weeks, but he would not confirm that the food aid scheme would cease to exist in 2014.
"There is currently no formal proposal on the table to end the scheme from 2014, and the Commission has the sole right to propose EU legislation," the official said. The EU food aid scheme was introduced in 1987, and was originally designed to divert part of the bloc's huge grain and butter mountains to help feed poor citizens. Reform of the EU common agricultural policy (CAP) from the 1990s onwards drastically reduced the size of the bloc's surplus farm stocks, and the scheme was changed to allow the Commission to buy food from the market when its own stocks were too low. But following a legal challenge from Germany and Sweden, Europe's second-highest court ruled in May that the scheme should only be funded using the bloc's farm intervention stocks - not directly from the EU budget.
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