Humanitarian aid for refugees in Turkey

16.7.2020

Question for written answer E-004248/2020
to the Commission
Rule 138
Jérôme Rivière (ID)

In draft amending budget No 5 to the general budget of the European Union for 2020, the Commission proposed mobilising the contingency margin in response to the urgent need for humanitarian aid for refugees in Turkey. During its July part-session Parliament adopted a report approving the mobilising of an additional amount of EUR 481 572 239 in commitment appropriations for the budget year 2020. This sum is to be taken from headings 2 and 5 of the budget regulation, entitled respectively ‘Sustainable growth: natural resources’ and ‘Administration’, although it should be taken from heading 4, External Actions’. But this heading is already empty.

Does the Commission prefer, therefore, knowingly to favour aid for the Turks, who attack EU Member States at regular intervals, rather than to keep its funding for itself and in particular for the long-since moribund agricultural sector that will be hard hit in the months to come by the economic crisis?