| dc.description.abstract | Council Regulation (EC) No 2012/2002 of 11 November 2002 establishing the EU Solidarity Fund (hereinafter "the Regulation"), provides that a report on the activity of the Fund in the previous year shall be presented to the European Parliament and to the Council. The present report presents the activities of the EU Solidarity Fund (hereinafter “EUSF” or “the Fund”) during the year 2015: the treatment of new applications and the assessment of implementation reports with a view to preparing these for closure. Following the amendment of the EUSF Regulation1, applications submitted to the Commission after June 2014 were assessed according to new criteria as laid down in the Regulation. In 2015, the Commission received a relatively small number of applications for EUSF assistance. Only three applications were made in the course of the year concerning two cases of flooding in Greece and severe winter conditions in Bulgaria. The Commission assessed favourably all three applications. As the 2014 revision of the EUSF Regulation introduced the possibility of advance payments to likely beneficiary States, the Commission created the necessary budgetary conditions in the 2015 EU budget and was thus able to approve the advance payments for the three applications received in the course of the year. Moreover, the Commission completed the assessment of four applications already received in 2014 from Romania (two applications), Bulgaria and Italy. The Commission assessed favourably all four applications. In financial terms, in the course of 2015, the Commission approved assistance from the EUSF amounting to a total of EUR 82 780 615, representing seven applications. Including financial assistance already approved at the end of the preceding year of EUR 126 724 968 (but for which the budget appropriations had to be carried forward to 2015) the Commission paid out a total of EUR 209 505 583. Important progress was also made on the closure of eight EUSF interventions from previous years. Annex I presents the “major disaster” thresholds for mobilising the Fund applicable in 2015 and annex II presents an "overview of the applications" mobilised in the course of the year including the relevant financial information. |
