The European Parliament yesterday passed the allocation of over EUR 182 M from the European Union Solidarity Fund to the six member countries that suffered from the effects of floods in May-June 2010, with Romania to receive EUR 25 M.
Democrat-Liberal MEP Petru Luhan last year proposed Romania being put on the EP floods resolution. Consequently, Romania’s Government tendered the European Commission an official relief assistance application.
“The catastrophe last year produced significant damage to infrastructure, farming sector, as well as public and private property in many of Romania’s counties. Today, the European parliament did its duty, passing at the soonest the European Commission decision on the amount of EUR 24,967,741 being dispensed to our country,” Mediafax quoted Luhan, a member of the Regional development Commission of the European Parliament, as saying.
Romanian authorities put at EUR 875,757,770, i.e. 0.6669 per cent GDP, the damage caused by last summer’s flooding to 37 of Romania’s 41 counties, population 6.7 M. About 15,000 people were evacuated from their homes, 147 public buildings were in need of repair, as well as 293 km of dikes and 35 dams, 5,257 km of road infrastructure and bridges. The European Union Solidarity Fund (FSUE) is the main instrument available to the EU aimed at coping with natural disasters and showing solidarity with disaster-struck areas.
The fund was created in reaction to the devastating floods that hit Central Europe in the summer of 2002. The Fund has an annual budget of EUR 1 bln and has been used to provide relief assistance in 33 instances of natural disasters including floods, forest fires, earthquakes, storms and draughts. A number of 20 EU states have contributed to the EUR 2.1 bln-plus fund.
