The Council of Ministers of the Spanish Government approved the ESF+ distribution system for food aid, establishing the use of vouchers as a way of distributing the funds and granting them through a direct subsidy to the Spanish Red Cross. The total subsidy amounting to 100 million euros.
The decision adopted, which is a transitional measure until December 2024, introduces a series of modifications that directly affect the Food Banks and the social entities and people to whom they provide help:
It goes from being a program aimed at all people in a situation of food poverty to targeting a specific segment of the population: families with dependent minor children and incomes of less than 40% of the average income. The new system leaves out a large number of people who are in need of food.
Direct food delivery is replaced with vouchers that can be used in supermarkets.
FESBAL warns that the measure forget about many people who go to one of the more than 7,000 entities of FESBAL. Specifically, homeless people, lonely elderly people and families who do not have dependent children. Likewise, the withdrawal of aid for the purchase of food of 50.2 million kilos may affect the ability of Food Banks to provide aid to the people who go to these entities daily in search of food.
The Spanish administration is one of the few countries that have chosen the delivery of vouchers as a formula for providing aid. For FESBAL, the most dignified way to help people is through close and continuous support, which is the great added value offered by the 7,000 social entities supported by FESBAL.
