Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-09-14-Speech-2-150"
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"en.19990914.6.2-150"2
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"Mr President, the sooner this transition period is over, the better for all of us: as soon as Parliament has confirmed the new Commission, competences can be transferred to the new Commissioners.
Firstly, I wish to state very briefly that the budget is a legal obligation of the Commission under the Treaty. The Commission-in-office must handle the budget - it has no choice but to do so.
I have only very few comments regarding the draft budget adopted by the Council: it proposes a cut of EUR 430 million in commitments and EUR 1.7 billion in payments. While these cuts are quite normal at this stage of the budget procedure, they are this year supplemented by a substantial redeployment of EUR 430 million in category 4 - external actions - to finance the Kosovo reconstruction of EUR 500 million.
Although redeployment appears necessary to finance this new priority, one must take account of the fact that too great a redeployment risks destabilizing the budgetary and political balance in external relations. Redeployment should be the main source of financing of the Kosovo action but it may have to be supplemented by other means.
As far as agricultural expenditure is concerned, the new Commission will come back at the end of October with new forecasts in its now traditional letter of amendment which has been agreed by the institutions.
I take note of the Council’s overall concern to improve the situation of the outstanding commitments by following most of the Commission’s requests. In category 2 - structural actions - where payments can be reduced due to the proposal to adapt the payment on account from 4 to 3.5%: this can be done without major difficulties.
Finally, however, I would like to draw your attention to an important inconsistency in the Council’s decision. The Council proposes to increase the Commission’s administrative expenditure by only 0.9% while it foresees an increase of 3.5% for the other institutions. The Council has achieved its reduction by assuming that the Commission would increase the number of vacant posts and thus realise important savings. This aim goes against what the European Parliament has wanted for many years and what the Commission has undertaken to do, namely to reduce the number of vacant posts.
All in all, the key to success in this year’s budgetary procedure is the financing of the EUR 430 million needed for the reconstruction of Kosovo and of Turkey following the earthquake. I am sure that the new Commission will look into this matter as one of the first priorities and come forward with a balanced proposal."@en1
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