Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-23-Speech-2-172"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20011023.7.2-172"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Commissioner, the budget must be the perfect instrument for choosing the EU’s political priorities. And those choices, I should like to underline once more, must serve the interests of all European citizens.
The on-going debate on the final form to be taken by the Union indicates that there are many different opinions on the subject. I am alarmed by the fact that this diversity of opinions is not reflected in many European projects. The fact that a unilateral propaganda megaphone is resounding from Brussels across the Union, and at the citizen’s expense, concerns me greatly. Those concerns were recently intensified when the Committee on Budgets rejected an amendment tabled by our Conservative English MEPs to inject impartiality into the Commission’s information policy.
There is more. The Commission, as well as the majority in this Parliament, want to press on. Driven by the intense desire to bring about political Union as soon as possible, the European Commission has submitted a proposal for making contributions to European political parties from community funding.
This is highly peculiar, for those European parties hardly exist. The citizens are not familiar with them, yet we are expected to sponsor them. Once again, the EU’s political diversity is being overlooked. In this way, only mainstream European parties qualify for European subsidy, while the national political parties – which are closer to the citizen – do not. Time and again, polls illustrate that the citizens in the Member States are not keen on interference from Brussels. Promoting European political parties will only further alienate the citizen from European politics. This is why we warmly recommend our amendment which proposes scrapping these contributions.
The Commission’s and Parliament’s urge to stress the distinctive features of the European political parties does not end at the Union’s borders. I should like to quote one example by way of illustration. More than EUR 180 million is pledged annually to the Palestinian Authority. If the schools paid from that budget use inflammatory school books full of racist and anti-Semitic language, the Commission washes its hands of the matter. Why does the Commission continue to ignore this evil and keep running away from its political responsibility?
I have to say that the Union is punching above its weight. The Union should confine itself to those areas of policy where European action has an obvious added value. The fundamental choice which I, apart from all the positive things, miss in this budget, is that of prioritising the EU’s core tasks and leaving the other tasks where they belong: with the Member States."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples