Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-02-Speech-3-125"
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"Mr President, I would like firstly to thank the Members, and especially the rapporteur, for the speed with which they have dealt with this issue. This will no doubt allow us to release the funds for Kosovo quickly and deal with the concerns which both Mr Swoboda and Mrs Pack have mentioned.
Lastly, I would like to make some observations on the requests for additional information which have been addressed to us. On the one hand, we have been asked to provide Parliament with information regarding the progress of invitations to tender and, in this respect, I can tell you that the Commission was last week able to provide Parliament’s Committee on Budgets with the latest statement of contracts and payments carried out since the task force was sent into action in Kosovo. The Commission can commit itself to regularly informing Parliament of the invitations to tender which are published. We also wish to see these publicised on the Internet, so that there may be maximum transparency with regard to this specific point.
A second point which I would like to comment on is the remaining information which may be of importance to Parliament with regard to the provision of macroeconomic assistance. In this respect I would like to tell you that the Commission is prepared to keep the chairmen of the various committees involved in this area regularly informed, on a confidential basis, if the nature of the information provided requires confidentiality, on the different schemes being implemented for macroeconomic assistance.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, and I hope that, with the final decision of the Council, we can release these funds and make a positive contribution to maintaining the considerable effort being made in Kosovo by different parties, so that we might achieve that situation of greater coexistence and peace which we all wish to see.
I think I have seen three types of fundamental concern in tonight’s debate. Firstly, although much progress has been made, and we could mention customs administration, bank administration or tax administration, it is true that we must continue to move forward. However, in moving forward, what should we be financing? This is the first point on which there is a certain amount of disagreement. In some of your amendments you propose that we limit further the type of bodies which can be provided with Union funds, for example, Amendments Nos 3 and 5. In our view, however, in both respects, greater room for manoeuvre should be left to the administration of the United Nations which, on the ground, is more aware of the reality than we are.
We believe that to prejudge, at the moment, where resources should be directed, would create more practical difficulties. In short, we should put our faith in those parties who, in these areas, are better equipped than us to make certain decisions.
The second concern which I notice that many of you share – it was first expressed by Mr Bourlanges, but others have repeated it – refers to the situation regarding the other donors. Is the Commission making an excessive effort while others are failing to cooperate? Some of the amendments in your report pose this question. For example, Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 4.
I would say to Mr Bourlanges and to those who have raised this issue, that this is not the fundamental problem, although we recognise it totally. The fundamental problem is that, at the moment, the distribution of the burden amongst the different donors has been established in the statements of the High Level Steering Group, but it is also true that they have no legal status. This is simply a political commitment.
That is the reason why, while accepting its spirit, we would ask that Amendment No 1 be worded differently – and we have sent a note to Mr Brok in this respect – so that it does not imply conditionality in the provision of Community resources.
I would say the same about Amendment No 2, which we would also accept with a slight modification, since the idea seems to us to be basically correct.
Amendment No 4 is of a similar nature. On this specific point, we can perhaps offer Mr Bourlanges greater satisfaction. We have already spoken to the Council so that it might include a Commission statement in its decision, establishing this element of conditionality. With regard to the second contribution, what we propose is that the exact amount and the date for the implementation of the second stage should be decided in accordance with the external financial needs of Kosovo and the contributions of other bilateral donors. In other words, we should not establish conditionality, or we believe that it is more effective not to establish conditionality from the start, but, nevertheless, we should establish it with regard to the possible liberalisation of the second stage. In this way, we would have no problem in acting immediately. We would not create problems for the Kosovar people, but, on the other hand, we would force the other donors to make their financial contribution in the way that we are doing.
A third problem has been raised by Mrs Dührkop with regard to the multiannual programmes. I would remind you that these projects are multiannual. The programmes clearly have to take the annual budgetary contributions into account."@en1
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