Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-06-11-Speech-2-062-000"
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"en.20130611.5.2-062-000"2
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"Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her good and meticulous work on this very important dossier.
For those who will benefit from this fund, it is literally a lifeline, because it will ensure that those people who need it most have access to reasonable nutrition and to some of the basic necessities of life. But the fund is more than that. It is also a message, a signal from this Parliament and from the EU institutions that solidarity is much more than just a word. It is something tangible and real, and this programme is part of that reality.
It is my understanding that there is a blocking minority in the Council, and I have read the reasoned opinions put forward by some of these Member States, where they speak of subsidiarity. But what about subsidiarity when it comes to overseeing one another’s budgets? What about subsidiarity when it comes to deciding how taxpayers’ money in Member States is spent or what we do with depositors in Cypriot banks? Subsidiarity is an argument that is used against the provision of food to needy EU citizens, but it is totally ignored when other decisions are being taken. In my opinion this is neither logical nor reasonable. I believe many EU citizens would be appalled to know that some Member States are blocking the adoption of this dossier and the setting up of this fund.
My group, ALDE, is fully in support of this fund. However, there is a debate as to whether it should be mandatory or voluntary. My group is supporting a voluntary option, in other words that Member States can access this fund, but – crucially – is asking for it to be ring-fenced. This would mean that those Member States which want to use their own systems and not the EU programmes can continue to do so, while other Member States, who want to use this fund, can use their own allocation and will have the legal base to use some of their cohesion funding for this hugely important fund. In our view, this will help guarantee that all of the fund will be used, because, if a Member State is allocated a certain amount under the mandatory option and does not use it, then that portion of the fund goes back to the EU budget.
We already know that fewer than 20 – I think it is 17 – of the Member States operate the current fund. We cannot force Member States to use the fund but, I believe that giving flexibility under the ring-fencing of the fund is the best option to ensure that all of the fund will be used for food for the most deprived."@en1
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