Description of funding programme

• Author: Applica, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (European Commission), Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
• Pages: 33-36

The Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) in Germany

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1 Description of funding programme

The Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) was set up in 2014 to alleviate

the worst forms of poverty in the EU and to promote the social inclusion of the most

deprived persons. The Fund complements social inclusion measures funded under the

European Social Fund (ESF), while exclusively supporting the most deprived persons. The

activities of the Fund are carried out under shared management between the Member

States and the Commission, and the total amount of resources from the EU budget is EUR

3.8 billion for seven years (2014-2020). The maximum EU co-financing rate is 85%, and

Member States have to provide as national co-financing at least 15% of the total funding.

All Member States prepared an operational programme (OP), which sets out how the FEAD

resources will be used. In particular, FEAD assistance may be implemented through two

types of OP, as follows.

a) 'Food and/or basic material assistance' (also referred to as 'OP I') – an OP

supporting the distribution of food and/or basic material assistance to the most

deprived persons, combined where applicable with measures aimed at alleviating

social exclusion.

b) 'Social inclusion of the most deprived persons' ('OP II') – an OP supporting activities

other than active labour market measures, consisting in non-financial, non-material

assistance aimed at the social inclusion of the most deprived persons. Only

Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden chose to implement OP II.

The FEAD has to be implemented through partner organisations (in the case of OP I) and

beneficiaries (in the case of OP II) – public bodies or non-profit organisations – which

deliver food or material assistance, combined with accompanying measures in the case of

OP I to the end recipients or undertake activities, aiming directly at the social inclusion of

the end recipients in the case of OP II in particular.

The FEAD was chosen for a case study because the programme has, among other things,

focused on children at risk of poverty and their families and developed new ways of

reaching children at risk of poverty, be it through free school lunches, breakfast clubs, free

school articles, etc. It was decided to focus this case study on the German programme

(‘Europäischer Hilfsfonds für die am stärksten benachteiligten Personen in Deutschland’з

or EHAP (European support fund for the most deprived in Germany)) as it specifically

focuses on recently arrived EU citizens, in practice mostly from eastern and south-eastern

Europe, and their children – one of the four groups of children targeted by the Preparatory

Action to explore the potential scope of a Child Guarantee.

Germany has experienced a large influx of citizens from EU Member States in recent years.

According to the Federal Statistics Office, in 2013, before the launch of the initiative, 31.5%

of the total of 1.1 million migrants from outside Germany came from the central and

eastern European Member States of Poland, Romania and Bulgaria (346,500 people)30. In

2017 the number was 450,858, with the largest proportion (219,989) from Romania. While

most migrants from the EU to Germany are reasonably, or very highly, skilled, a significant

proportion are low-skilled31 and unemployed and live at risk of poverty and social

exclusion32. They are migrating to escape extreme poverty in their home countries. The

families tend to migrate to cities and towns in Germany in which they have family or friends

or which are traditional ‘arrival towns’, for example Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen and Hagen in

North Rhine-Westphalia. These towns and cities tend to have massive problems themselves

and are often overwhelmed by the arrival of poor and low-skilled EU citizens from eastern

30 Statistische Bundesamt.

31 In 2017, 12.9% of the inhabitants of Germany with a migration background did not have a school leaving

certificate, compared with 1% of Germans without a migration background

(https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/245651/umfrage/bildungsstand--verteilung-der-bevoelkerung-

nach-migrationshintergrund-und-schulabschluss).

32 Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (2013).