Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-20-Speech-2-383"
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"en.20080520.29.2-383"2
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"For 20 years the European food aid programme has made a decisive contribution in meeting the food requirements of undernourished people in the Community.
On 4 April 2006 this Parliament adopted a supportive declaration on the European food programme for the most deprived people in the Community. This declaration calls on the Commission and the Council to provide a multiannual budget allocation and to introduce a series of flexibility measures in the management of the programme. A strong emphasis is also put on the need to secure a balanced diet for needy people.
This programme actually started back in 1987 as an emergency measure in a time of abundant surpluses of agricultural production. During its first years, the food aid programme mainly relied on supply from intervention stocks. As stocks have been declining over the last years as a consequence of the successive reforms of the common agricultural policy, the Commission introduced a series of changes to secure the continuation of this scheme and these changes include the possibility of market purchase for products that are not available from our intervention stocks, the exchange of products within the same ‘family’ and the possibility to mix or incorporate intervention products and products bought on the market.
The budget has also been adjusted in particular to take into account the recent enlargement of the European Union. It has increased from EUR 213 million in 2004 to EUR 305 million this year, 2008. Therefore the Commission has made all efforts to keep in operation a programme that is based on intervention stocks in spite of the fact that these were vanishing. So we can actually say that we have been pushing the programme to its limits.
Now the time has arrived to rethink the future of this programme without losing sight of its broader picture. With this aim the Commission services are already working on an impact assessment that examines the options for the future. The internet consultation has attracted huge participation with more than 12 000 replies, which proves the high interest among European citizens for this initiative.
NGOs have actually played a crucial role in the implementation of the programme and they will also remain a key player in the future. In a seminar which we organised in April they expressed the wish to maintain the food aid programme under the administration of the Directorate-General for Agriculture and they also stressed the need to introduce some kind of a multiannual allocation of funds and supply a broader range of different products. We are now examining these requests from the NGOs and will stay in close contact with them.
After the completion of the impact assessment I intend to submit to this Parliament in September a proposal that allows the continuation of this scheme but on a very solid basis for the future. So I thank you very much for your interest and attention to this very important scheme."@en1
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