Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-05-Speech-3-170"
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"en.20000705.4.3-170"2
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"The French delegation of the UEN Group is for several reasons unable to approve the report by the Committee on Budgets currently being debated.
First, we feel that it fails to make a distinction between the debate on the 2001 budget and the debate on the revision of the financial perspectives, which we refuse to revise. Who could forget the circumstances under which the financial perspectives were drawn up at the Berlin summit. No French delegation from the European Parliament could possibly question the compromise which resulted from the difficult negotiations in March 1999.
A revision appears to be even less in order now that the European Union has opted, having itself bombed Serbia, to cut off any Community aid to it. We therefore need to subtract EUR 2.3 billion from the 5.5 billion announced by Mr Prodi for the reconstruction of the Balkans from 2000-2006. The situation then appears to be quite manageable: there is enough money, the financial perspectives do not need to be revised and nor does the ceiling on the agricultural line need to be lowered. As far as the figures announced by Romano Prodi last November are concerned, the Commission may take them back today, it knows full well that these sums are not, alas, based on an accurate analysis of the region's needs and, in its own words, it is a ‘political’ sum which, by the way, has never been approved either by Parliament or, more importantly, by the Council.
It is therefore possible to find a substantial sum of money for the Balkans without revising the financial perspectives. The fact that we have seen a chronic surplus of over EUR 3 billion at the end of the year demonstrates that the sum of appropriations voted for does not correspond to real needs, whilst it is possible to make substantial savings as the result of the patent under-implementation of certain programmes. This surplus also shows that it is better for efforts in the Balkans to be funded in part by redeploying appropriations.
We also reject Mrs Haug's report for its proposals on the Union's special envoys. This is, in fact, tantamount to a reduction of what still comes under the intergovernmental conference for the benefit of Community integration. The Amsterdam Treaty, which we fought against, states that, as of this year, the administrative costs of the CSFP will come under the Council, while operational expenditure will be financed from chapter B8 under heading 4.
Finally, we refuse the differentiated appropriations for rural development which the resolution appears to recommend because this would inevitably create difficulties in settling payments. We would simply remind the House that the agricultural guideline still applies, the ceiling decided at Berlin notwithstanding.
Although the ceiling is reached if you add market expenditure (1A), rural development (1B) and pre-accession agricultural expenditure, to accept differentiated appropriations for rural development is to run the risk of having the Commission propose substantial commitment appropriations and far fewer payment appropriations, to the detriment of our farmers yet again, and this we cannot accept."@en1
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