The EC approves 6 new national programmes to help those most in need
The new Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) includes Italy’s €670 million programme, the largest of all FEAD allocations across the EU.
di Staff
The European Commission has approved the operational programmes for six EU countries to use the new Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD). This includes Italy’s €670 million programme, the largest of all FEAD allocations across the EU.
Launched in January 2014, the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) is a potent symbol of European solidarity. Its main aim is to break the vicious circle of poverty and deprivation, by providing non-financial assistance to some of the EU’s most vulnerable citizens.
The FEAD is worth €3.8 billion in real terms in the 2014 to 2020 period.
The Fund will help to strengthen social cohesion by alleviating the worst forms of poverty. It will also contribute to meeting the EUROPE 2020 target of reducing the number of people in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion by at least 20 million by 2020.
The FEAD supports Member States’ actions to provide a broad range of non-financial material assistance including food, clothing and other essential goods for personal use, to materially-deprived people.
Material assistance needs to be combined with social inclusion measures such as guidance and support to help the most deprived to get out of poverty.
Member States may also choose to support the provision of non-material assistance to the most disadvantaged people, in view of their social inclusion.
The Czech Republic, Cyprus, Hungary, Italy, Malta and Slovakia will receive a total of €850 million to provide food and basic material assistance to those most in need.
They join the ten EU countries that saw their national programmes approved in the last weeks and France, the first to have its national FEAD programme adopted in July.
Here is a breakdown by country for the period 2014-2020:
- The Czech Republic will receive €23,3 million (complemented with over €4 million from national resources) to tackle food and material deprivation of groups such as families with children, people in serious social need and those suffering from (or at risk of) homelessness.
- Cyprus will receive €3,9 million (complemented with around €700.000 from national resources) to provide school material to the most deprived students attending public schools.
- Hungary will receive €93,8 million (complemented with €16,6 million from national resources) to provide food and material assistance to children from poor families, homeless people and disabled and/or elderly people with low income.
- Italy will receive €670 million (complemented with €118 million from national resources) to provide food for free to people in need (60% of the total budget), to support children in deprived families with school material and equipment (30% of the total budget), and last but not least to provide assistance to homeless people.
- Malta will receive nearly €4 million (complemented with €600.000 from national resources) to provide food assistance to households with the lowest means.
- Slovakia will receive €55,1 million (complemented with €7,7 million from national resources) to provide food and basic material assistance to homeless people and to households reliant on benefits and in material need.
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