The EUSF was established in 2002 to enable the EU to show its solidarity with Member States and Candidate Countries affected by natural disasters. It was reformed in 2014 and its legal basis is Regulation (EU) 2012/2002, as amended by Regulation No. 661/2014. The Fund’s main purpose is to provide a financial contribution, as an expression of Community solidarity, to assist the recovery from disasters such as flooding, earthquakes or storms.
From 2002 to t he end of 2016 – the period covered by this evaluation – 126 applications were made to the Fund ; 76 were successful, 47 were rejected and three were withdrawn. All the rejected cases occurred prior to the 2014 reform, and most were ‘ regional’ cases.
The annual amounts allocated by the EUSF have varied from €1.65 million to €1.229 billion , reflecting the unpredictability of natural disasters. The largest contributions have been in response to earthquakes , the highest being for Italy following the 2016 disaster, with a EUSF contribution of €1.196 billion . However , there are no national quotas and the Fund has supported 24 Member States candidate countries , with a mean allocation of €66.9 million for the 76 accepted cases.
Annexes
- Staff working document: Evaluation of EU Solidarity Fund 2002-2017 en
- Executive summary en
- Terms of reference en
- Interim report en
- Case study: Austria – Flood 2013 en
- Case study: Bulgaria – Severe winter 2015 en
- Case study: Greece – Forest fires 2007 en
- Case study: Italy – Earthquake 2012 en
- Case study: Portugal – Flood 2010 en
- Case study: Romania – Flood 2014 en
- Case study: Serbia – Flood 2014 en
- Overview case studies en
- Media Survey Report en
- Synthèse fr
- Zusammenfassung de