EU To Pay More to Countries Suffering from Natural Disasters
The EU budget will pay more money to countries which have suffered from natural disasters. The agreement was reached at the permanent representatives-level in Brussels.
The EU is nearly doubling financial aid for regions which will suffer in the future from earthquakes, floods, drought or similar natural disasters. Expenditures on recovering from damages will be covered from the European budget by up to 90%, decided the representatives of the 28 member-states in Brussels. Up to now, for some regions financial assistance reached up to 50%
The money will come from the European Regional Development Fund without changing the total amount of the budget allocated to the fund until 2020.
The statement of the Council did not make clear whether the financing of damages will mean a transfer of funds from other projects in other sectors which are not being utilised properly.
The union already supports countries damaged by disasters in a different way – via the solidarity fund which has at its disposal EUR 05. B per year.