EU funds available after floods
EU funds could help pay for storm damage repairs in Cumbria and other parts of the North West affected by flooding.
With the region braced for more bad weather, the European Commission said the Government had 10 weeks to apply for assistance from the EU budget if it wanted to do so.
Money is available from a European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF) set up in 2002 in response to severe flooding in central Europe.
Cash can be triggered in the event of a major natural disaster which causes at least 3.4 billion euros (about £3 billion) of "direct damage".
The financial threshold is different for each EU country and "direct damage" includes all public and private physical destruction caused by the disaster and the cost of rescue operations and immediate emergency infrastructure repairs.
There can be contributions even if the overall cost of damage is less than the threshold figure, but only in the case of "extraordinary regional disasters affecting the majority of the population of a region and having serious and long-lasting effects on its economic stability and living conditions".
Apart from such special regional exceptions, the fund does not cover any long-term economic damage, such as reduced turnover in a region or sector, and lost tax revenue to national treasuries. Ireland may also qualify for EUSF support because of widespread storm damage, and the minimum "direct damage" cost the Dublin government would have to establish is 972.7 million euros (£876 million).
The maximum annual sum the EUSF makes available is one billion euros,(£900,000) and it has already paid out more than half of the total in disaster aid in 2009, most recently £444,000 for the Abruzzo earthquake in Italy and £90 million to tackle the impact of Storm Klaus in France.
A country which equalises could receive 2.5% of the estimated cost up to the threshold, and 6% of any amount above the threshold. One commission official said structural damage already caused by flooding in the Cumbria region could already be sufficient for the Government to submit an application for help from the fund.
