Press Release: €113 million for the 2012 most deprived persons programme

The total value of funds for the 2012 programme for the supply of food for the most deprived persons in the European Union has been set at €113 million, with the precise allocations fixed per Member State.

This is a sharp reduction from the near € 500 million awarded in recent years because of a ruling by the Court of Justice in April stating that the current regulation requires the food covered by this scheme to come from EU public stocks. Therefore, the 2012 scheme is exclusively based on all the available existing intervention stocks (162 000 tonnes of cereals and 54 000 tonnes of Skimmed Milk Powder in intervention).