Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-24-Speech-2-217"
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"en.20020924.10.2-217"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me quickly run through just a few points regarding the 2003 budget procedure. Topic number one – since it occupied our minds yet again this week, as the President-in-Office can testify – is the European Union's aid to ameliorate the damage caused by the catastrophic floods in Europe.
This House agreed what was really quite a good strategy a few weeks ago. Sadly, we have been unable to push this through in the negotiations with the Council. However, I have a specific request to the President-in-Office: please ensure that all the pledges you made to us yesterday in the trialogue, especially as regards the timetable, are upheld in practice. After all, the emergency assistance which we are seeking to provide will lose its impact if – due to your failure to keep your promises – we cannot pay out the money until Christmas. This would be unfair to the people and the victims of these floods.
The PPE group's other idea has already been presented to you by the chairman of our working party, James Elles. I shall pick out just a few of the points here. Commissioner, I recall very clearly that at the start of its term in office, the Commission made various promises about all the things it wanted to do better, especially its plans to reform and improve the Commission's functions and working methods. Three years down the line, it is clear that this reforming zeal has now subsided somewhat. This being the case, it is down to Parliament to provide something of an incentive and motivate you to keep up the pace of reform. We therefore say ‘yes’ to additional posts, but initially in the reserve, and we expect a detailed timetable to be presented, showing how you intend to use your remaining two years in office to complete the reform of the Commission. This was what you promised three years ago, and alongside all the other matters which must be dealt with during your term in office, you must carry this through, for it was a key element of the mandate given to us by citizens at the 1999 European elections.
In the area of the trans-European networks – to turn to my second topic – we would particularly like to ensure that the bottlenecks with the Central and Eastern European countries are removed. I therefore ask you, Commissioner, to devise proposals for the Member States which are directly affected as countries bordering the candidate countries, so that the resources from the budget lines can be used specifically to remove these bottlenecks. I think it is very important for enlargement to take place on a real and practical basis by establishing an appropriate cross-border infrastructure with the Central and Eastern European countries.
Topic number three: let me briefly address the issue of the Palestinian Authority. We have tabled an amendment which states that funds should be put on reserve here. We want to ensure that European taxes are used in a proper manner. As yet, the International Monetary Fund has been unable to confirm that in terms of control of expenditure, it is doing all that we expect to be done as a matter of course when European funds are being used.
Lastly, a key priority area for us is the Common Foreign and Security Policy. The President-in-Office is already aware of my request. It is rather depressing to hold a conciliation procedure at the end of July while everyone else was on holiday, only to find that the Council then fails to honour the agreements we made. I find this very disappointing. My request is that as set out in the statement adopted during the conciliation procedure, there will be ‘appropriate involvement of the Parliament in respect of such matters under the CFSP’. We have tabled an amendment which is designed to point a way forward here, and I ask for your support. From next week, we will have to discuss in detail what we want to do during the 2003 budget procedure. The PPE is prepared to engage in constructive cooperation with the other groups. I hope that we will then be successful, through our joint efforts, in achieving progress on these important issues."@en1
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