Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-19-Speech-3-108"
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"en.20010919.8.3-108"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of annual reports is to carry out analyses over a limited period and draw conclusions from them. This 11th Annual Report on the Structural Funds relates to a year which is undoubtedly very important for the development of the European Union's cohesion policies. My group supports the rapporteur on some of the proposed measures and options to improve the management of the Structural Funds, such as speeding up the implementation of approved measures, concentrating assistance in areas whose development is lagging behind or improving on-the-spot checks to combat what is still a very high level of fraud.
However, we also have some criticisms. We should point out that we do not endorse some of the conclusions drawn by the rapporteur, such as the overly negative assessment of the Structural Fund results during the planning period and the failure to meet the regional policy objective of harmonising living conditions, which has supposedly only been achieved in part. I would say to the rapporteur that he has adopted the wrong approach to European structural policy, whose task is solely to reduce disparities and which I believe has generally achieved this goal. In fact, there will always be a discrepancy between living conditions in the rich and poor regions of the EU, and even within Member States. We are daydreaming if we expect harmonisation from the structural policies. We should not confuse achievable goals with a wish list here.
My second point of criticism is that despite all the significance of 1999, the 11th Report is an annual report and not a storehouse catalogue in which all the concerns and problems faced by the European Union in the past, present and future have to be rolled out yet again. If reports are to achieve anything, they must focus on specific priorities, as we all know from our years of practical experience here in Parliament. This is precisely what this report does not do. As I said, the rapporteur's conclusions are not necessarily wrong, but much of what is included in the report really does not need to be there. That is why we believe that some of the points raised in the report need to be amended by the plenary."@en1
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