The Commission supports the results of the
inter-institutional negotiations and can therefore accept the
Council's position at first reading in order to secure the
continuation of the scheme up to 2013.
The Council's position is the result of intensive
intergovernmental and inter-institutional negotiations which
followed the adoption by the European Parliament of its position at
first reading on 26 March 2009.
On the trilogue discussions on 6 December 2011, the
European Parliament expressed its strong support in favour of the
continuation of the programme. On 15 December 2011, the Council
reached a political agreement for the continuation of the scheme up
to 2013. The Council position at first reading is scheduled for
adoption on 23 January 2012.
The main provisions of the revised
programme are the
following:
- market purchases are made a regular source of supply
for the programme to complement intervention stocks. However,
priority would be given to the use of suitable intervention stocks
where these are available;
- the scheme remains fully funded out of the EU
budget with a ceiling of €500 million per budget
year;
- Member States choose the food products on the basis of
objective criteria including nutritional values and suitability for
distribution;
- Member States may give preference to food products of
Union origin;
- the storage costs born by the charities become
eligible for reimbursement.
The main points of the
compromise, which
were negotiated and agreed upon by the three institutions, are the
following:
- the current scheme ends following a phasing-out
period, which would terminate with the completion of the 2013
annual plan;
- the legal basis of the Most Deprived Programme
of the EU remains unchanged (Articles 42 and 43(2)) for the
duration of the phasing-out period;
- retroactive applicability as from 1 January
2012;
- in order to facilitate the agreement, the provisions
relating to the Lisbon alignment are exceptionally not included, so
the current implementing rules would continue to apply.
The Commission has made a declaration which
takes note of a joint declaration from France and Germany in
which these two countries state that:
- that they agree to continue the program for a
transition period ending definitely on 31 December 2013 in order to
allow charity organizations in Member States using the current
program to take into account the new situation;
- that they consider that the conditions are not met for
a proposal of a new program for a period post 2013 to be presented
by the Commission and adopted by the Council;
- that they cannot agree with legal and financial
proposals by the Commission of such a program in the
future.