Text tabled : A7-0032/2012

  Juozas Imbrasas (EFD), in writing. – (LT) I voted in favour because, given the particularly unusual situation created by the blocking of the proposal at the Council for two years, the European Parliament has no real margin for an extensive negotiation in order to amend the Council position. It should also be remembered that Parliament, in its resolution of 7 July 2011, had called on the Commission and the Council to develop a transitional solution for the remaining years of the current multiannual financial framework (MFF) so as to avoid a sharp cutback in food aid as a result of the reduction in funding from EUR 500 million to EUR 113 million and ensure that people dependent on food aid do not suffer from food poverty. At a trialogue organised on 6 December 2011, the European Parliament negotiating team recognised, in its majority, that in view of the explanations given by the Presidency and Commission representatives on the absence of a better solution in this particularly difficult situation, it saw itself obliged to agree to the Council compromise as the only means for achieving a transitional solution for the remaining years of the current MFF. In view of those arguments, also shared by the majority of MEPs at the AGRI special meeting of 12 December 2011, I welcomed the rapporteur’s proposal that the Council position should be accepted without amendments, so that it can finally be adopted in its current form at the European Parliament Plenary (as a so-called early second reading).