The European Union Solidarity Fund, implementation and application

The European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF) was established in 2002 after devastating floods in Central Europe.

Since then it has been mobilised 49 times, allocating a total of €3.2 billion to be spent on helping victims of natural disasters.

However, several applications for funds had to be rejected because the rules governing the use of EUSF resources were unclear.

The purpose of the present initiative is to pinpoint those elements requiring modification so that the rules governing the allocation of EUSF resources become clearer and easier to apply.

The Greens believe that the EUSF is a useful tool for helping victims of natural disasters.

But we also feel strongly that the use of the fund's resources ought to be geared towards the long term by focussing on sustainable measures for preventing future natural disasters, e.g. by specifying flood plains to lower the risk of floods.

We also advocate faster processing of payments, not only at European level, but also at national and regional level.

The Greens succeeded in incorporating our key amendments into an already well balanced report.

We also managed to clarify some of the language of the report, especially in the section on payment procedures.