Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-16-Speech-2-031"
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"en.19991116.2.2-031"2
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"I would like first of all to reject the argument made by a number of people here that to increase own resources is to increase the burden of taxation on the citizens of Europe. That is, of course, not necessarily true. The responsibilities of the European Union are based on the principle that there are some things we can do more efficiently at European level. If we decide to transfer responsibility for agricultural industry from the Member States to the European Union and discharge that responsibility more efficiently, the end result could in fact be a reduction in the burden of taxation. Similarly, if we decided to transfer responsibility, say, for development cooperation, from the Member States to the European Union, I believe we could achieve immensely more in the world with the same amount of money and we could increase own resources while at the same time not increasing the burden of taxation on the citizens of the European Union.
We talk about democracy and transparency. First of all I would say that anything that we decide in a democratic way, through the institutions of the Union, about own resources, is what own resources are. If the European Union, in a democratic process, decides that own resources are simply a straight percentage of GDP collected by the Member States and passed over in a lump sum, that is fair enough: that is what own resources are and that is democratic. The more elements we drag in, the more un-transparent we make the system, the more difficult it becomes. That is why I am not concerned in the least by the 10% or the 25%. If we have a fixed figure that the European Union needs as own resources, then obviously if we leave the Member States more of what we call the traditional own resources, we have to collect more of that as a percentage of GNP. So this argument is not important all.
The balance of advantage, or the balance of returns to Member States, is extremely difficult to calculate. Let me make one further point on this. If you look at Holland and Germany, on whose behalf there was so much crying in this Parliament, you will find that the single market has given them immense benefits and they have had extremely positive balances in their trade with the rest of the Union over the years."@en1
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