AGRICULTURE/SOCIAL POLICY : GERMANY CHALLENGES FOOD AID PROGRAMME.

• Position: Brief article

"The European food aid programme for the most deprived is in danger." In their cry of alarm, food banks recalled in a statement, on 11 February, that this mechanism has allowed food products to be delivered in kind to charitable organisations for 22 years. The alert came after Germany decided to challenge the programme with the court as Berlin deems it illegal. The European Federation of Food Banks (FEBA) denounces the fact that some countries have since November 2008 been blocking the new legal framework proposed by the European Commission. These member states are opposed "to the continuation of the programme for the years 2010 to 2013," the Federation says indignantly.

The Czech Republic, Latvia, Finland, Luxembourg, Estonia, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom consider that aid to the most deprived must no longer fall under agricultural policy, the intervention stocks having disappeared following successive...