MEPs approved plans to release 182.4 million Euro in EU Solidarity Fund aid to help repair the flood damage in Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia and Romania in 2010 despite their strong reservations about the funding method chosen by the Council.

Budgets Committee voted for the Council proposal because they felt that they could not let flood victims also become victims of a dispute between the Council and Parliament. Nonetheless, MEPs disapproved of the source of the funding, a "negative reserve", as proposed by the Council of Ministers.

 The Solidarity Fund comes to the aid of any Member State in the event of a major natural disaster. The Fund has an annual budget of one billion Euro. When natural disasters occur, aid funding must come from other budget lines, via a procedure called "redeployment". Budgets Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski proposed that "fresh money" be added to the budget by means of an amending budget, a procedure agreed during last December's budget negotiations.

In these budget negotiations, some Member States focused on payments. They disagreed with the Commission's estimates -5.8% increase- and managed to reduce the increase in payments for the 2011 budget to 2.91%. MEPs feared that this could prevent the Commission from being able to meet its payment obligations. By way of compromise, the Council signed a joint declaration, stating that in the event of unforeseen costs or emergencies, funds would be added by means of amending budgets. MEPs felt that their decision is contrary to this declaration. Budgets Committee Chair Alain Lamassoure stressed that this behaviour would make it hard to accept any further written declarations by Member States during the discussions over the 2012 budget and the 2014-2020 financial perspectives. 

Finally the Commission's proposal changed to use a so-called "negative reserve". In the committee's view, this procedure merely provides a "once-only" solution, since the maximum available for this reserve is 200 million Euro. Furthermore, MEPs considered contrary to an existing agreement on meeting unforeseen, urgent needs.