Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-26-Speech-2-037"
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"en.19991026.2.2-037"2
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"Mr President, last May this Parliament endorsed the financial framework for the period 2000-2006. That implied a readiness to observe the necessary budgetary discipline. We must assess Budget 2000 against this background.
The rapporteur proposes that we should go way beyond the ceiling on expenditure on external action. He is playing for high stakes in so doing; seeing as this will only unsettle matters where the interinstitutional agreement is concerned. Financing important priorities such as Kosovo and East Timor is now becoming dependent on a political game that Parliament and the Council are playing over the Financial Perspective. Moreover, what credibility can a Parliament have when it wants to renegotiate the financial ceiling that it itself agreed with such a short time ago?
It is far too early to call upon Article 19 of the interinstitutional agreement. We must first look seriously at the various possibilities for financing these new priorities within the present framework. I am thinking, for example, of those areas where there was underspending in 1999 and of the possibility of making cutbacks in programmes with low expenditure figures such as MEDA.
Next a few words about the Structural Funds. The current problems with the payment appropriations are evidence of the fact that the budget for the Structural Funds has been pegged at too high a level in the past. The rapporteur proposes to incorporate 50% of outstanding payments into Budget 2000. I am very apprehensive about this enforced increase in the appropriations. Can such an amount be absorbed and is the Commission capable of managing this extra money effectively?
I cannot support those who are in favour of incorporating the resources of the European Central Bank into the European Union’s budget. After all, this would mean the budgetary authority gaining control over the European Central Bank’s capital, which would jeopardise the independence that the ECB needs to have. Furthermore, the European Union is not a shareholder of the European Central Bank. Any distribution of profits would then go not to the EU but to the national central banks.
We are amazed to see an amendment to the effect that the Commission is attempting to draw up a statute for European political parties. Only parties matching up to this blueprint would be considered for financial assistance. There is no way that we can go along with this attempt at centralism. Drawing up a statute of this kind is a matter for the political parties themselves in the first instance. Moreover, the party organisations reflect national cultures and diversity. Any attempts to squeeze the political parties into a European straitjacket will only serve to widen the gulf between Brussels and the citizens of Europe.
On a final note, the Virrankoski report contains the umpteenth declaration of intent to revise the regulations governing travel cost reimbursement on the basis of costs actually incurred. But are we not getting to the point when it is time to convert words into deeds? Our group put forward an amendment aimed at achieving this but the Committee on Budgets rejected it. That was a lost opportunity and it sends out the wrong signal to the citizens of Europe."@en1
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