Tuesday, 14 May - Alain Lamassoure (F, LDR) explained to the House that unfor-eseen events had led the EC to increase its financial ceilings in order to help third countries. As a result the budgets committee, he said, was recomm-ending approval of increases in ceilings of category 4 expenditure to 728m ECU in commitments and 423m ECU in payments in 1991. He further explained that 400m ECU was for technical assistance to the USSR; 88m ECU for Israel and the Occupied Territories; 100m ECU to finance the emergency aid plan for the Kurds, approved last month; and 140m ECU to fight famine in Africa.

Given the haphazard approach to dealing with emergencies, Mr Lamassoure concluded that the EC's decision-making procedure was inadequate and he hoped the inter-governmental conference would act to improve the way the Community reacts to unforeseen events. As he put it : 'unfortunately God didn't read the Inter-Institutional Agreement'.