Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-13-Speech-1-078"
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"en.20000313.3.1-078"2
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"Hopefully we are reaching the conclusion of a process that started a year ago under the previous Parliament. Apart from the importance of the topic itself, this regulation and the accompanying tropical forests regulation represent the first regulations concerning development cooperation to be considered under codecision. So for many of us this is an interesting learning experience.
Amendment No 12 proposes the raising of the threshold for submission of projects for consideration by the Council from EUR 2 million to EUR 5 million. Given that most projects are already under EUR 2 million this amendment is considered not relevant. Furthermore we are concerned that its adoption would lead to a conciliation process. Therefore the Commission does not support it.
The amendments on procurement and access to the markets – Amendments Nos 13 and 14 – would mean a departure from standard and carefully agreed formulations. In any event, as with bank guarantees, the Commission does not consider it appropriate that such issues be addressed through special provisions in specific regulations but rather in a horizontal manner.
We oppose Amendment No 15, concerning the creation of an environmental monitoring union, as this is in our opinion a question of internal Commission organisation which should not be addressed through a regulation. Such a unit is, in fact, already operational although we intend to strengthen it further.
Lastly, we do not support Amendment No 17 as it does not conform to the usual rules or formulation of regulations and is considered to be redundant.
The previous regulation expired at the end of 1999. Since the beginning of this year, the Commission has been unable to make any new financial commitments on these budget lines. This places the Commission and Europe in an increasingly difficult situation. Hence our desire to conclude the process of adoption in the near future. In this context, we have supported the informal negotiations between the Council presidency and the parliamentary rapporteur so as to arrive at a proposal which could be accepted by both parties. The main areas of difference have been on the financial reference amounts, on comitology and on the duration of the regulation. I would like to comment briefly on each of these issues.
On the financial reference amount, briefly, we accept the compromise proposals put forward under Amendment No 11. Comitology:
Our position has been to advocate an advisory rather than management procedure for the management of the regulation in accordance with Council Decision 1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 which states: "The management procedure should be followed as regards management measures such as those relating to the application of the common agricultural and common fisheries policies; also the implementation of programmes with substantial budgetary implications". In our view, the programme to be funded under the regulation does not represent substantial budgetary implications and hence does not merit a management procedure, an advisory procedure being more appropriate.
However, in view of the Council's views on this matter and in order to avoid conciliation, we support the compromise proposal put forward by Parliament for a split comitology procedure whereby decisions on strategic guidelines for the actions to be financed would be subject to a management procedure while project approval for the limited number of projects over EUR 2 million would be subject to an advisory procedure. Hence the Commission supports, in principle, Amendment No 16 but prefers the wording of Amendments Nos 19, 20 and 21.
Concerning the duration of the regulation, our position has been to support an unlimited duration subject to periodic revision following evaluations. However we are aware that if unlimited duration were to be approved here, this would lead inevitably to a conciliation process. In this context we consider that the duration of seven years, proposed by the Council, is adequate and hence, in the interest of avoiding conciliation, we do not support Amendment No 18, which places an unlimited duration on the regulation.
The final important issue common to both this regulation and the forest regulation are the amendments concerning bank guarantees. We concur with the view of Parliament that the Commission should not place bureaucratic barriers to the access of some NGOs to financing from Community funds. For this reason the Commission took a decision in July 1999 only to require bank guarantees for advance payments of over EUR 1 million. Hence the problem has, to a large extent, been resolved. Furthermore the Commission considers that such matters are best addressed in a horizontal manner rather than through specific regulations. For these reasons the Commission does not support the proposed Amendment No 10 on bank guarantees.
The remaining amendments of the environment regulation can be placed in two categories: on the one hand, amendments which consist of reformulating elements of the scope of the proposed act or its means of intervention; and on the other hand, amendments concerning the management of the actions to be financed, in particular financial aspects. With regard to these two types of amendments, the position of the Commission is as follows. With the aim of finding a compromise solution which would make it possible to avoid conciliation the Commission could support Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, although it considers that they bring little added value to the text overall. Careful reading of the joint position will show that most of the concerns behind these amendments have been taken into consideration but following the structure of the regulation.
The second type of amendments pose more problems to the Commission which therefore does not support them: Amendment No 9 – coordination with the local partners, as formulated in the report – is not supported by the Commission, not because of disagreement with the principle, but because the article in question is framed in the context of the Treaty which only refers to coordination with Member States."@en1
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