European Union Solidarity Fund annual report 2010.

Abstract

The European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF) was set up on 15 November 20021. Article 12 of Council Regulation (EC) No 2012/2002 of 11 November 2002 establishing the European Union Solidarity Fund (hereinafter "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 2010 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. 2010 has been the Solidarity Fund's busiest year ever in terms of the number of applications received. A total of 17 new applications for Solidarity Fund financial assistance were submitted to the Commission over the course of the year. All of these applications concerned flooding disasters. The majority of these cases were only submitted in the latter half of the year and for 6 applications the assessment and adoption procedure was still ongoing by the end of 2010. In the course of 2010 the Commission accepted nine of the applications and decided that the conditions for mobilising the Fund were not met in the case of five other applications. In total the Commission proposed aid amounting to EUR 262.303 million which was subsequently approved by the European Parliament and the Council.2