On November 14, European Union farm ministers have finally found a compromise that would ensure the financing of the EU Most Deprived Programme (MDP) for 2012 and 2013. Nevertheless, this agreement does seal its fate and prepares the way for its disappearance after 2013.

MDP was put in place by the European Community in 1987. At that time, there were surplus food stocks in the European Union, some of which began to be distributed to charitable associations which asked for it. A year earlier, the famous French comedian Coluche, had successfully persuaded the then president of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, to give some of the CAP surpluses to the destitute. A few months previously, Coluche had founded  the French food relief agency “Restos du coeur” (literally ‘restaurants of the heart’). [more]