European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn was quoted as saying that, "with this decision, we want to express our solidarity with the people of Slovenia and Croatia, after the terrible floods which have hit their countries. Unfortunately, we have seen an increase in the number of applications for aid over the last few years, but the European Commission stands ready to assist all Member States which have to deal with natural catastrophes."
Being an accession country, Croatia can benefit from assistance from the Solidarity Fund. Croatia and Slovenia submitted their joint application to the Commission in November 2010.
"Infrastructure, the farming sector and private property, especially in Western Croatia, bore the brunt of the severe flooding. Significant damage was caused to energy, water and waste water infrastructure, transport, education and health infrastructure. This resulted in e.g. electricity blackouts and blockages of road traffic which made it difficult to take immediate action."
"The Croatian authorities estimated the total direct damage at EUR47 million, which is less than the threshold of intervention fixed for this country (EUR275.8 million). However, according to legislation, a country affected by the same major disaster as a neighbouring country (in this case Slovenia) may exceptionally benefit from the Solidarity Fund. This condition was taken into account and the application was accepted on that basis," the European Union's executive arm reported on its web site.
The EUR 1.17 million assistance will be used mainly to reimburse the clean-up of disaster stricken zones.
Croatia has already received nearly four million euros for the removal of the damage caused by flooding in the eastern counties of Osijek and Vukovar in May and June last year.
The money from the Solidarity Fund with an annual budget of one billion euro is aimed at financing emergency measures such as relief operations, cleaning up the affected areas and repairing basic infrastructure, made by national, regional and local authorities. It was established after floods in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and France caused serious human and material damage in the summer of 2002.