European Union Solidarity Fund: financing and conditions to resort to it. Interinstitutional agreement

PURPOSE : Interinstitutional Agreement on the flexibility mechanism and financing concerning the European Union Solidarity Fund ("the Fund"). COMMUNITY MEASURE : Interinstitutional Agreement between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on the financing of the European Union Solidarity Fund supplementing the Interinstitutional Agreement of 6 May 1999 on budgetary discipline and improvement of the budgetary procedure. CONTENT : The Fund was established by Council Regulation 2012/2002/EC. This Agreement sets a ceiling on the annual amount available for expenditure by the Fund of EUR 1 thousand million. On 1 October each year, at least one-quarter of the annual amount must remain available in order to cover needs arising until the end of the year. No non-budgetised portion of the annual amount may be carried over. In exceptional cases and if the remaining financial resources are deemed insufficient by the budgetary authority, the Commission may propose that the difference be financed through the next year's Fund. The annual budgetary ceiling of the Fund in the year of occurrence of the disaster and the following year will under all circumstances be respected. When the conditions for mobilising the Fund are met (see CNS/2002/0228) the Commission will make a proposal to deploy the flexibility mechanism. It will at the same time, initiate a trialogue procedure on the need to resort to the flexibility mechanism and on the amount to be allocated over and above each heading in the financial perspective. Following the agreement reached in the tripartite dialogue and the adoption of the joint decision, the two arms of the budgetary authority will undertake to adopt the relevant amending budget as soon as possible and preferably in a single reading by each of the institutions concerned.�