Watson steps up fight for regions flood money

1.39.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 20th May 2008

This week in Strasbourg local Liberal Democrat MEP Graham Watson - who represents the South West and Gibraltar - continues to step up his campaign to ensure Gloucestershire gets its fair share of European Solidarity Funding.

Graham commented today,

"Together with Jeremy Hilton, our Lib Dem council leader in Gloucestershire, I have written to John Healey, the Minister responsible for distributing the European flood money. On behalf of the hard pressed Council Tax payers of Gloucestershire we are demanding that the government release funds to the value of £110 Million as was the expectation and intention of the 639 European Parliamentarians who authorised the assistance to the flood hit English regions.

The British government's effective top slicing of the funds - which means only £31 million is being made available to councils, is tantamount to theft!

With such blatant disregard for the will of Europe's democratic institutions is it any surprise that bungling Treasury officials are yet to even supply the European Commission with details of a bank account into which the Solidarity funds can be paid?"

Editors note:-

Last week Gloucestershire Liberal Democrat Council Leader Jeremy Hilton joined Graham Watson in Brussels to meet European Commission officials to discuss the Solidarity Funding for the County.

Commission officials surprisingly commented that the funds were still held in Brussels as no bank details have yet been provided by the UK Treasury.

Last summer Graham Watson MEP wrote to Gordon Brown urging the government to apply for Solidarity Funding. The EU Solidarity Fund is intended to reimburse non-insured losses, such as emergency assistance and public infrastructure costs.

Graham has campaigned at the European Parliament for the application to be approved as quickly as possible. The Commission then approved £110m of funding to help with the costs of emergency recovery, which at the moment will only equate to a net payment of £31m.

Around 48,000 homes and 7,000 businesses were affected in the South West, the Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside in June and July last year. The European Union Solidarity Fund set up after the catastrophic flooding which hit Central Europe in summer 2002, is designed to provide fast, effective and flexible emergency financial aid to areas struck by natural disasters