mr president the food facility began as a proposal from the commission in the light of the rising food prices that provoked riots in some countries to use eur one billion in leftover agricultural subsidy money to relieve the situation in developing countries through agricultural inputs and emergency safety nets
the money was in this form expected to be wholly additional to existing development funds
now five months later we have our billion but it is in an entirely different form than that originally envisaged
two fridays ago i attended the budget conciliation meeting with my colleagues from the committee on budgets and the council where we were finally able to reach a compromise over the funding of the food facility regulation
the last sticking points were then ironed out on the following monday at a trialogue between parliament commission and council
the final compromise funding looks like this eur one billion to be financed over a period of three years two thousand and eight twenty ten via the flexibility instrument accounting for eur four hundred and twenty million redeployment with heading four external actions giving another eur two hundred and forty million and the increase of the emergency aid reserve by eur two hundred and forty million for two thousand and eight
this increase requires a revision of the interinstitutional agreement
this amount is additional to another eur one hundred million used from the existing emergency aid reserve
as the emergency aid reserve is made up of contributions by the member states the top-up of funding will only be additional if the member states do not compensate for their contributions by a corresponding reduction of the national budgets
it has been suggested that there are noises of dissatisfaction from the committee on foreign affairs and others about the part-financing of this from the stability fund
the foreign affairs committee may be unhappy about this but it was probably about the best deal that could be done in the circumstances
although i support the compromise we have now reached i have made a point of mentioning the shortcomings of the process and the outcome both in the interests of honesty and to highlight as i have done on previous occasions the ludicrous situation where governments across the globe are producing multiple billions of dollars to bail out banks but have to search their souls to find between twenty-seven member states and the budget of this union eur one billion for the poorest people in the world
i think we have done the best we could have done in a hundred days
we have found the money and we have put the regulation together but it is not a totally additional billion
the content of this report includes the fact that the compromise text has already been accepted by all member states in coreper and that essential elements from my report and the amendments from my colleagues on the committee on development are in it
the regulation is limited in time
it now runs until the end of twenty ten
it concentrates on tackling the short-term crisis its objectives are to boost agricultural production
it opposes the dispersion of funds by confining its use to a limited list of high-priority countries
it also widens the scope of possible implementing organisations and ensures parliamentary accountability
there are two statements appended to the regulation which help to ensure its proper implementation
at the end of the day i think we have done the best we can between council parliament and commission
we have done it in a hundred days
we have brought the law before parliament
we will vote on it tomorrow
it is already agreed
we have found the money
i would like in that context to pay tribute to the cooperation we received from the council and the commission particularly from commissioner michel who really did want this money to be additional
i would also like to thank the secretariat of the development committee particularly guido van hecken and anne mclauchlan and to thank in my office eoin ó seanáin and oliver o callaghan who were very helpful in all of this
i think at the end of the day that it is a good day's work and the best we could have done
