Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-07-02-Speech-2-011"
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"en.20020702.1.2-011"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the amendment to the 2002 Budget also contains a number of administrative expenses, which I will disregard.
What is remarkable is the Court of Auditors’ proposal for self-protection against terrorism. The Court of Auditors is following Parliament’s lead in this. We too have stated that we are not prepared to go along with the absurd increase in premiums by the insurance companies which, following 11 September 2001, actually refused to cover the risks of any future attacks. I naturally hope that our refusal will motivate insurance companies to enter into negotiations with us. After all, if self-protection becomes an issue for the medium or long term – there is also enlargement to include various institutions to consider – we will need to re-examine together how we can effectively cover and spread the risks that are related to this for the EU Budget.
Mr President, Mr Podestà spoke a moment ago about the enormous surplus in last year’s European Union Budget: EUR 15 billion remained unspent. I am not exactly in favour of wasting money or spending it for the sake of it, but we must ensure that we actually honour the promises we have made to our citizens and those in other countries.
This surplus is not a one-off. This will also be the case next year. As you know, the largest surpluses were found in the Structural Funds. This is logical, since these are major programmes that need time to get off the ground. Funnily enough, some Member States will argue that it is beneficial to have such an illogical framework as we have now, because they can then expect higher refunds at the end of the year, which is very advantageous to the net contributors.
I think that the same line of reasoning is applied to the Commission’s civil service. The European Union is accumulating an increasing number of tasks, a larger territory and ever more work. However, if more officials were recruited, this would also mean that the work actually got done, that money was actually spent, and I think that this is not the intention of a number of Member States. In my view, especially the net payers are all for making pledges, having too few people in service to carry out the pledges, blaming the Commission for this, and receiving a few billion of this back at the end of the year.
Mr President, I should like to finish off with a comment on the Färm report. I should like to congratulate Mr Färm warmly on his work and wish him every success in all the work he is yet to do. Needless to say, it is still a general resolution and the ultimate choices are still before us.
I can say that my group will be verifying the final Budget against at least three items. Firstly, an assessment of the mid-term review of the agricultural policy. Mr Färm now has the courage to refer to the word ‘reforms’, and rightly so. Secondly, enlargement and thirdly, category 4 - external expenditure. Both of these are concerned with whether we fulfil our promises. If it was up to my group, we would. We do not need any cheap seats in the front row, as long as the ultimate performance is worth watching."@en1
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