WRITTEN QUESTION E-0231/97 by Alexandros Alavanos (GUE/NGL) to the Commission (7 February 1997)

Subject: Flooding in Greece

The recent torrential rainfall in Greece has caused widespread damage in the Cities of Athens, Corinth and Larissa and in many other regions such as Evritania and Fthiotida. Urban districts, productive undertakings, agricultural holdings and infrastructures have all been affected.

1. Does the Commission intend to provide emergency aid by drawing on Community funds set aside for natural disasters?

2. What scope is there, in the context of the Second Community Support Framework review procedure, for providing funds to repair damage to public works (for instance, roads, bridges, etc.) and to press ahead with flood prevention schemes?

3. Does the Commission intend to examine the possibility of excluding farmers affected by the flooding from quotas and co-responsibility levies, so as to avoid a repetition of what occurred to cotton growers in Karditsa who, after losing part of their production in a natural disaster, were obliged to pay the co-responsibility levy?

Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission (20 March 1997)

1. The Community's budget for 1997 does not provide the item 'Emergency aid to disaster victims in the Community' with the necessary appropriations for immediate aid. The budget heading in question (B4-3400) carries a token entry.

2. The Commission would be prepared to examine proposals for the inclusion of flood protection or recovery projects in the relevant regional operational programmes financed by the Structural Funds under the Community support framework. Such proposals would have to be presented by the Greek authorities to the monitoring committees of these programmes and would be examined within the partnership framework through existing project assessment mechanisms.

3. In the case of cotton the market organization rules, set out in Council Regulation (EC) No 1553/95 of 29 June 1995 adjusting, for the fifth time, the system of aid for cotton introduced by Protocol 4 annexed to the Act of Accession of Greece ((OJ L 148, 30. 6.1995. )) and Council Regulation (EC) No 1554/95 of 29 June 1995 laying down general rules for the system of aid for cotton and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 2169/81 (1), do not allow for exemption from the aid reduction mechanism for growers whose crop has been damaged. However, since the aid reduction depends on the extent to which the guaranteed maximum quantity set in the rules has been exceeded a smaller harvest means a smaller reduction and hence higher aid.

In the case of other agricultural products to which production limitation (quotas or other co-responsibility mechanisms) applies the rules generally make no specific provision for natural disasters. For arable crops however the Commission has made a proposal ((OJ C 243, 22. 8.1996. )), now being discussed in the Council, to permit, when exceptional weather conditions have occurred, exemption from certain penalties for overshooting base areas. Moreover the compensatory payments per hectare for arable crops introduced by the 1992 reform can, subject to certain requirements, be paid even if the crop has been damaged.