Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-26-Speech-2-048"
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"en.19991026.2.2-048"2
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"Mr President, this budget is fundamental to the development of Europe in the next few years. It is the first budget in accordance with the new Financial Perspective and institutional harmony will depend very much on its efficient execution, and without that harmony – and I would like to underline this – it will be very difficult to implement a genuine European policy.
We would have preferred to separate the fishing agreement from the rest of the Community’s external activities. In our opinion, this is a confusion of two categories of expenditure and two different kinds of problem. However, it is also clear that the outgoing Commission did not include any indication concerning the renewal of the agreement in its preliminary draft and, for this reason, did not include any appropriation in the reserve. If the outgoing Commission had been willing to take that political step, we would not now have to wait for the second reading.
We repeat however that we will have a political commitment on the part of the European Parliament to prioritise the funding of the said fisheries agreement. This will serve to calm the fears of all those families and economic sectors which urgently need this agreement.
Finally, what we do ask the rapporteur and the representatives of the Council is that an enormous effort be made in terms of negotiation. We do not want to reach the second reading with a proposal to break the interinstitutional agreement and thereby end up with no Financial Perspective.
I repeat: we need a Financial Perspective and we need the interinstitutional agreement. But we also need credible, and therefore well financed, external European activities. We need both things. And we want the Member States to confront these exceptional circumstances, and the reconstruction of Kosovo is an exceptional circumstance, with exceptional solutions which must not be sought by means of a simple across-the-board cut imposed on Parliament in their lines and programmes.
The general rapporteur has said this: we are in a paradoxical position which requires a real solution. The priorities are clear. Now, representatives of the Council, the negotiation must begin.
We must remember that the previous Parliament approved, in May, the Financial Perspective for 2000-2006 and the interinstitutional agreement. Parliament approved them by a simple but, nevertheless, clear majority.
We must also remember that the Berlin Council approved the Financial Perspective by means of an extraordinarily complicated consensus, which began with some extremely divergent standpoints between the Governments and, furthermore, with a European Commission which had resigned and a European Parliament which was at the end of its mandate.
What I mean by this is that it is now of fundamental importance to defend the Financial Perspective. Only in this way for example can we guarantee the financing of the Union’s structural policies.
It is clear however that the interinstitutional agreement itself provides for a review of the Financial Perspective if necessary. If the Council has not found any other way of financing the reconstruction of Kosovo other than an across-the-board cut in the external activities of the Union, it is logical that the European Parliament will want to defend those lines.
In any case, we believe that the notion of defending the validity of the approved Financial Perspective and the notion of needing to finance the reconstruction of Kosovo by means of a limited review of that perspective, are compatible notions. If this is the proposal which Commissioner Schreyer is making, I hope that this Parliament will welcome it.
With regard to the fisheries agreement with Morocco, we should point out that the commitment presented by the rapporteur on the first reading calms the fears of a significant section of the Community fishing industry. We must remember that the fisheries agreement with Morocco affects almost 30,000 citizens of the Union and that regions such as Galicia, the Canary Islands and Andalusia have a large proportion of their fleet fishing in Moroccan waters.
It is normal – and this is the view of the rapporteur and my own group – that, at the beginning of the budgetary process, we should be concerned to see that in the first reading no commitment had been specified for these EUR 125 million.
Nevertheless, and bearing in mind that fishing policy is a Community policy whose funding is separate from the Treaties, a formula has been found between all of us that allows the Council’s amendments not to be rejected in the first reading, including those referring to fishing, but rather defers their approval until such a time as financial agreement is reached with the Council."@en1
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