 The Fund for European Aid for the Most Deprived is a new EU fund that will provide food and other material assistance to some of the most vulnerable citizens across the European Union. It's important to note that there are 120 million people that's a quarter of the population of Europe who are at risk of poverty. There are 40 million people suffering from extreme material deprivation. That means that they can't afford to put a meal on the table every second day. There are 4 million people who are homeless across the European Union. 25 million children are actually touched by poverty. So this fund is a practical expression of the EU's solidarity with people who are living at the margins of our society. The Feed to Fund is actually replacing the food aid programme that came from the agriculture budget. This was where intervention stocks were made available to organisations. People are aware that the intervention stocks are running quite dry. Then there was a court case taken that said that that fund didn't have a legal basis. The new fund Feed is different in several different ways. Firstly and most importantly, instead of coming from the agriculture budget, it will now come from the social cohesion budget. That's actually very important. Secondly, instead of just concentrating on food aid, the fund can be used for food aid and other basic consumer goods. That is something that many of the NGOs who work with the fund at the moment have actually welcomed that it has a broader scope. Thirdly, the fund will be open to citizens in every European country. What we are saying is that this fund is for the people who are deprived. It's not necessarily for the governments or for the Member States. All Member States should participate in this programme. The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to support the Feed programme. That is actually very important. Significantly as well, Members of the European Parliament stated categorically that £2.5 billion, which is the budget that is proposed by the Commission and by the Council, Members of the European Parliament have stated that that is not sufficient. Members of the European Parliament have supported my recommendation as rapporteur that the fund should be increased to €3.5 billion. There was a vote in the European Parliament. 519 deputies have supported the fund and have supported the call for an increased budget. What happens now is that we will open negotiations with Council and with Commission. We are not in any doubt as to the difficulties that that poses. We are aware that there is a blocking minority, which is opposed to even the principle of the fund at Council, and we are aware that while the Commission is supportive of the fund that they are not in favour of an increase in the budget. Certainly the negotiations will be difficult both in terms of the budget but also and importantly on the principle of the actual programme in the first instance because we are very concerned that there is a minority at the Council that is actually trying to block the fund from existence in the first instance. That blocking minority includes countries like Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Denmark. And these are many countries that don't participate in the current programme that's funded through the agriculture budget line. And they say that they have a fundamental disagreement with the notion of the EU providing food aid or alleviation to people in poverty. What we in the European Parliament are saying to that is that first of all feed is the only fund that actually and the only instrument that the European Union has to reach out to the most vulnerable citizens in all our member states. And secondly we are saying that poverty knows absolutely no boundaries. There are poor people and people living on the margins in every single country. So we believe that this fund is important. It's important that it actually reaches out to those people but we know that we will have a job on our hands to try and persuade that blocking minority to actually lift their objections to the programme and at the same time try to persuade the council and the commission that £2.5 billion given the increased participation given the broader scope is not sufficient. One of the issues that MEPs identified when we looked at the commission's original proposal was that we believed that a fund that is providing food aid and material assistance to the most deprived should actually address issues around food waste and also the areas around local supply chains and healthy living, healthy diet. So we proposed a number of amendments that would actually try and develop synergies with other EU policies in the field of food waste, in the field of them healthy eating, healthy diet and particularly again trying to encourage local supply chains because we believe that this is a very important aspect and that this fund actually provides an opportunity for that. Now we are aware that there are many organisations in Ireland cross-care provide food banks and they are already actually working in the whole area of food waste where they have developed links with many of the retail supermarket chains to ensure that food that is perfectly good food will not be destroyed and they are working with those agencies and what we hope to do is that this particular fund will encourage many other agencies and in essence what it will do is that it will provide them with seed capital. The predictability of this fund will help them leverage additional assistance, be it additional finance assistance or be it additional benefit in kind from supermarkets, from farming and other agricultural outlets. Let's say food that maybe is a little bit odd shaped potatoes that don't make it into the normal food chain but would be perfectly acceptable can be channeled through some of the organisations that are distributing the food aid and the other material items through the feed fund.