The ECOFIN Council will be asked on 7 October to agree Commission proposals to mobilise the European Solidarity Fund in response to disasters in Spain (Prestige oil spill), Italy (Molise and Apulia earthquake and eruption of Mount Etna), and Portugal (forest fires). The ECOFIN Council will have before it two proposals for decisions to mobilise the Fund: for Italy/Spain (EC document 11706/03) and for Portugal (EC document 12177/03); as well as Preliminary Draft Amending Budgets nos. 5 and 6 to the General EC budget for 2003 (EC documents 11910/03 and 12967/03). These documents are described in the enclosed Explanatory Memoranda, the first of which has already received scrutiny clearance (not printed).

  The proposals are being brought before the Council as a matter of urgency so that the EU can make a swift and effective response to the disasters concerned. In view of the widespread view among Member States that the EU should act quickly, we feel that it would be inappropriate to delay matters by maintaining a scrutiny reserve at ECOFIN, even though your committee will not have had an opportunity to examine and clear all of the relevant documents. Unfortunately, due to the short time-frame in which the relevant documents were published, it was not possible to present them to Parliament in time for one of the September scrutiny committee meetings. I very much regret this, but I hope that you will appreciate why the Government would not wish to stand in the way of a decision in this matter.

1 October 2002