Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-24-Speech-2-214"
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"en.20020924.10.2-214"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as early as the part-session last May, I expressed my concerns during the debate following the presentation of the 2003 PDB about a budgetary procedure which was proving, yet again, to be utterly inadequate to meet the needs of our Union. In May, my criticism of the Commission was based on two considerations: the level of RALs and heading 5. In July, Parliament and the Council came to an agreement on heading 5 which rejects the Commission’s request for more staff to deal with the challenges of enlargement in an attempt to balance the accounts. I would rather not return to the subject of the RALs because time is lacking and because none of us wishes to hear information which we know to be completely unviable financially but which, nevertheless, is produced year after year in the budgetary procedure.
Ladies and gentlemen, at the risk of repeating myself, I have to say once again that all this is quite ridiculous. Here I am yet again, calling upon this House and, through this House, upon the Council and the Commission to give due consideration to the possibility of revising the financial perspective, which, on the basis of my relatively little experience, appears to be the only conceivable sensible and responsible political move we can make. Article 19 of the 1999 Interinstitutional Agreement states clearly that the financial perspective can be revised on the proposal of the Commission in the event of unforeseen circumstances, and what could have been less foreseeable than the impending enlargement of the Union to include 25 Member States in 2004? I must stress: over the next three years, up until 2006, we will have to establish the budget for a 25-Member-State Union according to a financial perspective calculated on the basis of the needs of a 21-Member-State Union. Ladies and gentlemen, where is the sense in all this? Why are we continuing along this absurd path?
My proposal is, therefore, as follows. After the December Council, which will have to establish which and how many States are to enter the European Union in time for the European elections in 2004, the Commission should present a proposal for revision of the financial perspective, a proposal which the two arms of the budgetary authority will have ample time to adopt – in accordance with Article 20 of the Interinstitutional Agreement – before the start of the 2004 budgetary procedure. I feel that this is the only path we can take, the only path which, with due regard for budgetary rigour, will allow us to continue to do our job properly. I do not feel that the solutions hitherto adopted have yielded sufficiently positive results
and whereas, thus far, we have only had to explain them to citizens who are, at heart, well-disposed towards us, whereas, thus far, we have only had to uphold them before voters who are, paradoxically, almost more European than we are, in a few months we will have to explain them to people who have suffered just to be part of this Union and who will view us with an extremely critical, vigilant eye, with even closer scrutiny than the current Member States, to see whether or not we have done a good job."@en1
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