Report from the Commission. European Union Solidarity Fund annual report 2012

Article 12 of Council Regulation (EC) No 2012/2002 of 11 November 2002 establishing the European Union Solidarity Fund ("the Regulation") provides that a report on the activity of the Fund in the previous year be presented to the European Parliament and to the Council. The present report presents the activities of the Fund in 2012 covering, as in previous reports, the treatment of pending and new applications and the assessment of implementation reports with a view to preparing these for closure.

In the course of 2012, a total of 7 applications for Solidarity Fund assistance were received which represents a normal and average year in terms of the number of applications. Two applications were received during the first half of the year and five more followed over the summer and autumn months. The Commission also completed its assessment of two cases pending from 2011. In all, the Commission granted Solidarity Fund aid amounting to a total of €688,254,041.

The management of the Solidarity Fund in 2012 confirmed the experience from preceding years: Major disasters - which are the principal concern of the Solidarity Fund - represent only a small part of applications for aid. The biggest number of applications relate to smaller disasters below the damage threshold. The assessment of the latter however reveals that the majority of these cases do not meet the conditions for exceptionally mobilising the Fund. Replacing these rather complicated requirements in the Regulation with a clear and simple condition was one of the elements of the Commission’s preparatory work during 2012 for the review of the Solidarity Fund Regulation.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)856: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:856:FIN

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