Samenvatting

The European Union Solidarity Fund is a financial support instrument, which supports member states of the European Union and countries applying for accession with recovery costs after they were affected by a natural disaster. The Regulation (EC) No 2012/2002 established the Fund in November 2002; it is implemented under the cohesion policy and directly binding in all member states. After the affected state applies for funding from the European Commission and the institution recognizes the case either way as a regional or major disaster, the affected state has 18 months in order to spend the grant for emergency and reconstruction operations according to the implementation agreement. A new Regulation (EU) No 661/2014 was implemented in May 2014, which improved the effectiveness of the Fund.
This dissertation focused on the effectiveness of the European Union Solidarity Fund. The objective of this research was to find out how effective the Fund is in providing financial aid for reconstruction operations in case of a natural disaster inside of the European Union. This was done by an evaluation and comparison of two case studies, the earthquake in L’Aquila in 2009 and the flood in Greece in 2015. To this end, the central research question was as follows: “How effective is the European Union Solidarity Fund in providing financial aid for reconstruction operations in case of a natural disaster inside of the European Union?” Furthermore, the implementation measures of the Fund and the accomplishments of the reform were researched.
The research question was answered through obtained data on the implementation measures of the Fund and by applying an ex-post evaluation of the two case studies. Besides, data was collected by conducting two interviews with experts in the field of the Fund and the field of criminology. Based on the information of the experts and the secondary data, the results showed, that the Fund is effective for supporting affected member states in emergency and short-term reconstruction operations of up to 18 months. Nevertheless, the long-term reconstruction is the responsibility of the member state.
Therefore, among other things, it was recommended, that the European Union Solidarity Fund should be altered by the European Commission and other institutions of the European Union to provide funding for durable long-term reconstruction aid (more than 18 months). Moreover, the European Commission should enhance its role as a supervisor in order to improve the effectiveness of the Fund.