Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-04-Speech-4-031"
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"en.20000504.3.4-031"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin with a few political comments, so as to underline what the decision we are to make today is all about. After the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, in Bosnia- Herzegovina and in Kosovo, the international community set up civil institutions there – i.e. the European Union established the High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina and the UN set up an interim administration in Kosovo – that now coordinate and manage all civilian activities and all the work done out there. So far, this has been accomplished within the framework of the common foreign and security policy, under the authority of the Council, which has repeatedly decided to maintain these institutions, thereby providing a legal basis for the whole set up.
Allow me to make a few comments on the amendments that the Committee on Budgets has adopted and recommends to this House today. Firstly, in its first proposal, the Council recommended creating an Annex, which could be added to if further civil institutions were required. The Committee on Budgets has made a proposal on this score – and we urge Parliament to support this at the vote – to the effect that all future Community actions that are decided on should require fresh parliamentary decisions. In future, the Council will not be able simply to keep making additions – after all, this has budgetary implications – rather, a parliamentary resolution should be produced in every case. The message I am getting from the Council, the Portuguese Presidency, is that the Presidency and the Commission are very much in favour of reaching a compromise on this proposal and lending it their approval.
Parliament also attaches great importance to the idea that, in future, it too should receive a report on what is happening in these interim civilian administrations and that we should be accountable to the public for the use we make of European Union funds, which I think would create a good deal more transparency. The new Commission has begun to focus on creating greater transparency. It is vital for there to be transparency in this important sphere too, where there is a risk of so much going wrong, as we know from past experience. The issues of ‘interim civilian administration’, ‘peace agreements’ and ‘peace in Europe and in the Balkans’ are of concern to our citizens, and if reports were to start circulating that we were not spending the money wisely, then this could lead to distrust throughout the Union. Accordingly, we are taking an important step today in deciding that, in future, Parliament will be clearly accountable for the Union’s activities in this field.
In this respect, I believe that if Parliament undertakes, in this particular instance, to make a transfer to the first pillar today, then this will also send out a signal for future developments in the common foreign and security policy. There are other spheres that will require the democratic supervision of a Parliament once they are transferred from national to European level. Once Europe has wrested authority over these areas from the national Parliaments, there will be a need for democratic supervision here too, and the same goes for the common foreign and security policy. I believe we have got off to a good start today in this respect.
The 2000 Budget has made a total of EUR 28 million available for these projects in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and has made EUR 12.5 million available for UNMIK, which is the UN transitional administration in Kosovo. Therefore, the Committee on Budgets welcomes the fact that a new legal basis is now to be created for the enormous amounts of money that the European Union is committing to Bosnia-Herzegovina. In future, budgetary policy is not just to be determined within the framework of the common foreign and security policy, under the authority of the Council, but with the participation of the Commission, under its authority and that of the European Parliament with its budgetary powers.
There is a very long history behind this. In Mostar, for example, Parliament ascertained that, hitherto, the common foreign and security policy had been financed in an unsatisfactory manner and that Parliament did not possess the supervisory powers it needed in this respect to be able to oversee to good effect what was becoming of European taxpayers’ money. That being the case, it is a good thing that the Commission is now to relinquish its role as paymaster and accountant and is itself going to be able to take responsibility in these matters. Parliament is firmly in favour of this.
It is to be welcomed that we are to transfer this part of the interim civilian administration within the scope of the Union’s foreign policy to the first pillar, thereby involving Parliament more extensively in the common foreign and security policy. Since the Helsinki and Cologne Summits we have become aware of the extent to which the common foreign policy is changing and how much dynamism and momentum there is in this process, and we see it as very important for the Commission and Parliament, as European institutions, to be heavily involved.
This is the technical background to the text that we are to adopt today. As a Parliament, we will have the opportunity in future to put funds in this political field in reserve and to influence and play a part in the enforcement of particular measures. We will also have the opportunity to make the Commission accountable in the course of the budgetary discharge procedure and to make a better job in future of many of the things that may have gone wrong in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In this respect, although the act we are undertaking today may be one for specialists from the point of view of European law, it has great political significance because it also reinforces Parliament’s role in this important political field."@en1
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