MEPs back free fruit and veg plan for schools
An EU scheme to provide free fruit and vegetables to schools across Europe was backed by MEPs today.
But they said the £75m (€88.7m) a year set aside to pay for the plan should be stepped up to more than £400m (€473m).
The European Commission said that was unrealistic – and EU government agriculture ministers are due tomorrow to endorse the idea at the lower price tag.
EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told MEPs this afternoon she was not in favour of allocating more cash now but added: “When the Commission evaluates the School Fruit Scheme after three years, we may well find that it’s working well and needs more money. That would be the moment to think of bigger figures.”
She went on: “I’m glad to know that the Parliament is basically behind me with regard to the scheme because it worries me when I walk our streets and see far more overweight children than we used to see. We can’t just sit quietly twiddling our thumbs as this problem gets worse.
“Of course, the EU is not about to start dictating what people should and shouldn’t eat, but we can make a valid and valuable contribution to the health of our children.”
The scheme has already been hailed as a concrete step towards tackling obesity, because healthy heating habits learned at school will last a lifetime.
An estimated 22 million children in the EU are overweight, more than five million of them clinically obese. And the figure is rising by 400,000 every year.
Under the plan, EU budget funds will be spent on buying and distributing fresh fruit and vegetables. But the scheme will only operate in EU countries where governments are prepared to contribute an equivalent sum to the cost of supplying schools in their own country.
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