Earlier this week, Eurodiaconia attended a meeting at the European Commission where different EU-level NGOs were able to hear updates on the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived or FEAD from the European Commission. The Commission announced that all 28 EU Member States have now adopted their individualised operational programmes that will dictate how the FEAD money is used in each country.
Furthermore, at the meeting, Eurodiaconia was able to present feedback from our members who have already been working with the FEAD programme in their Member States to the Commission, and subsequent connections were made between the Commission officials working on FEAD here in Brussels and Eurodiaconia members experiencing difficulties with the FEAD operational programme in their own country. Because of the valuable input given to us from our members, we are able to help inform the Commission and other EU officials about what is actually happening on the ground with this new fund. The Commission will now begin working on a platform for exchange of good practices with FEAD, so that organisations using the FEAD funds in the near future will be able to converse among themselves and learn from each other.
Eurodiaconia will be conducting a short phone interview in the coming months with members who are working with FEAD in order to know what progress is being made at the Member State level with this new fund. If your organization has had experience with FEAD recently in your country, please contact Bailey Douque at bailey.douque@eurodiaconia.org in order to help us with this project.