EUSF financial assistance for countries affected by a major public health emergency

In “Regional Development - REGI”

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For a brief overview of the key points of the adopted text and its significance for the citizen, please see the corresponding summary note.

On 13 March 2020, as part of a series of measures to mitigate the consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic, the European Commission published a proposal for a Regulation to provide financial assistance to Member States and countries negotiating their accession to the Union seriously affected by a major public health emergency. The objective of the proposal is to extend the scope of the EU Solidarity Fund by amending Council Regulation EC No 2012/2002 to include major public health emergencies thereby allowing countries to receive support under this Fund to help them tackle the Coronavirus crisis.

Open to Member States and EU candidate countries, the EU Solidarity Fund is financed from outside the EU budget with additional money raised by Member States. In principle, the EUSF can currently provide funding in three cases: a major disaster (total direct damage exceeds €3 billion or 0.6 % of GNI of the country involved), a regional disaster (total direct damage exceeds 1.5 % of regional GDP) and in cases where an eligible country is affected by the same disaster as a neighbouring eligible country.

To receive aid, countries must first submit an application to the European Commission within 12 weeks of the first damage, which the Commission has six weeks to consider. If approved, the Commission then suggests a specific amount of aid, which must be endorsed by Parliament and Council. To speed up the relief effort, eligible countries are also entitled to receive advance payments, introduced under a 2014 reform and specifically called for by a 2013 Parliament resolution.  Intervening in some 87 disasters to date, the fund has allocated a total of €5.5 billion to alleviate the impact of events such as earthquakes, forest fires and flooding in 24 countries.

The proposal enlarges the thematic scope of the EUSF to cover major public health emergencies, thereby extending eligible operations to include assistance to the population in the event of health crises as well as measures to limit the spread of an infectious disease. It also proposes raising the level of advance payments for individual disasters of all categories up to 25% of the expected EUSF contribution, up to a maximum of €100 million, a significant increase on the current limits of 10% and € 30 million. As it is difficult to estimate the direct damage of major public health emergencies, the EC proposes to instead take account of the financial burden on countries' budgets. The proposal provides that, in the case of major public health emergencies, countries would be eligible for funding when the public financial burden due to public health emergency measures exceeds €1.5 billion or 0.3 % of GNI of the country involved i.e. half that applicable to natural disasters. In total, up to €800 million could be available under the EUSF in 2020.

The proposal was examined simultaneously by the Council and the EP.

On 17 March 2020, the Regional Development Committee (REGI) triggered the urgent procedure under Rule 163 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, referring the proposal without amendment directly to the plenary and, therefore, without a report from the REGI committee.

On 18 March 2020, EU ambassadors approved the proposal without amendment with a view to ensuring that the measures could be put in place as soon as possible.

On 25 March 2020, the European Economic and Social Committee adopted a position paper on the proposal. The EESC fully agreed with the extension of the scope of the EUSF to include major public health emergencies and to define specific operations eligible for financing in order to tackle the epidemic crisis, urging the Council and the European Parliament to adopt the Regulation amending the EUSF speedily.

Although the EESC welcomed the increase in advance payments from the current level of 10% of the expected amount to 25%, it noted that the unexpected epidemic crisis means that more needs to be done to ensure that the response is extremely rapid and effective and that financial resources are mobilised as quickly as possible. Equally, while welcoming the intention to increase the total level of appropriations for EUSF advances in the annual budget from EUR 50 million to EUR 100 million, the EESC considered this amount to be completely inadequate for the size of the emergency being faced.

On 26 March 2020, Parliament held an extraordinary plenary session in Brussels to enable the adoption of this proposal and two other specific measures, the Proposal for a Regulation on COVID-19 Response Investment Initiative and the Proposal for a Regulation on airport slots. One amendment was tabled to the proposal. Noting that the European Parliament had recommended that the Commission and the Council of the European Union formally suspend accession negotiations with Turkey, the amendment stated that this country should not be considered as an “eligible State”.

In view of the confinement measures in place in many Member States, voting took place exceptionally by e-mail. The amendment was rejected during the vote. The proposal was adopted at first reading by the European Parliament at the plenary session by 671 votes to three, with 14 abstentions. The Council's vote was also taken by means of a written procedure, to be concluded on 30 March 2020. Given the urgency of the situation, the legislative act was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 31 March 2020 and entered into force on 1 April 2020.

On 27 May 2020, the European Commission published a revised proposal for the 2021-2027 EU long-term budget, which proposes an increase in the maximum annual amount of the EUSF to 1 billion, which should help provide further support to help Member States cope with the impact of the Coronavirus crisis.

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Author: Christiaan van Lierop, Members' Research Service, legislative-train@europarl.europa.eu

As of 20/03/2023.