Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-24-Speech-2-222"
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall start with the questions and statements from Mrs Gröner regarding the perusal of the budget. She asked how many measures are targeted directly at women and to what extent programmes include specific equality-oriented elements. Let me point out once again that we have taken this into account explicitly in many of the budget figures and included it explicitly in many of the programmes. You referred to ‘gender budgeting’ and I would like to take this up. Indeed, my plan for the future is that we will also use our own very precise rules, which we have established for the accounting process, to provide further answers here. It is the case, of course, that payments can only be made to a beneficiary if he or she is recorded in the appropriate register. Up to now, we still have no record of gender, but this is a step that should be taken. I hope that on International Women's Day next year, I will be able to report on progress here!
Mr Casaca, you and other speakers this evening have raised this issue, and the President-in-Office will underline this once more in a moment: in the debate about the legal basis – in other words, when do we refer to a disaster, when will assistance be provided, and what conditions will apply – the President-in-Office has agreed that there will be a conciliation procedure in due course here too.
There is just one further point to be mentioned: Mr Martin, you called for the subsidies to institutions which promote the European idea to be distributed in a different way so that there is no earmarking here. All I can say is that this is a decision for the European Parliament. The Commission has put forward a different proposal here. We will also have to decide on a legal basis, but in this respect, I interpret your appeal as a call to your colleagues in this House.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Now to the issue of staffing and personnel expenditure, which was just raised by Mrs Buitenweg and Mr Escobar. Firstly, with regard to Mrs Buitenweg's question concerning the proposed use of the additional posts for the year 2003, I can say that this is correct. These 500 posts that we have applied for are to be allocated entirely to preparations for enlargement. However, there are to be personnel increases for the other priorities too – such as sustainable development and security – and this should take place through reallocation of staff in-house, within and between the services. In line with the Commission's proposal, this means that we can then ensure, through administrative measures, that 149 posts can be made available additionally for the ‘sustainable development’ priority. For the area of environmental protection, together with the posts for enlargement, the proposal now provides for 33 more places for the Directorate-General. I think this shows very clearly, yet again, where the priorities are being set.
As regards the use of the 717 posts which you approved for us in the last two years, the focus here has been on foreign policy. Almost 300 posts have been created in this area in order to improve implementation of the external assistance programmes. From the figures on implementation which are circulated to you each week, you can see that real and substantive improvements have been made here, with the 300 posts in this area having a clear impact. This is also apparent in other areas, such as competition etc.
I would like to respond to Mr Virrankoski – and the appeal to improve the situation of SMEs came from several Members of this House – as follows: we have earmarked EUR 66 million specifically for this budget line, but SMEs can of course also secure funding via the Structural Funds and via loan programmes for which assistance is provided from various budget lines.
Mr Würmeling, you called for appropriate resources for the European Court of Justice and drew specific attention to the fact that the European Court has to work in many different languages and that its judgments must also be translated into the relevant languages. There has been a strong increase in resources for the Court in recent years, thanks to the efforts of Mr Ferber, the rapporteur for this area, who has lobbied hard and very successfully for an increase in funding in recent years.
Mr Turchi, you stated, in the context of enlargement, that there must be an adjustment of the financial perspective. This will indeed be our joint task for 2004 since the adjustment of the perspective must then be shaped in such as way as to ensure that we distribute the resources from category 8 appropriately to the other measures. After all, the negotiations on the enlargement budget are now well under way. The budget authority must then undertake the appropriate adjustment for the year 2004, so we will all be looking at this issue during the course of 2003.
I would like to thank Mr Garriga Polledo once again for his comments on personnel. With regard to the reform of the Commission, we will of course be very pleased to submit a report to you again on progress made with regard to the implementation of the various measures agreed in the White Paper and which are supported by Parliament.
The President-in-Office will doubtless make a statement on the disaster fund in a moment. However, I should like to reiterate that we are in an unusual situation here because the task is to create a completely new instrument. If we do succeed in establishing all the legal bases for this new instrument by the end of this October, this really will be a record performance.
I think I have answered Mr Medina Ortega's questions in connection with the European Court of Justice. As regards the implementation of the various measures, I think we should also discuss the report on the Structural Funds in more detail in the Committee on Budgets. I would just point out that in 2002, we will not have the surplus which we had in 2001, since far more resources are being used in the area of agricultural policy than was the case last year, and also because my colleague Mr Fischler responded very quickly by adopting the measures necessary to provide prompt assistance to the regions where farmers suffered losses as a result of the floods, or to other areas. The EUR 900 million to be used for this mean that the budget surplus here will be lower. It will be lower in the structural policy field, and we will also be using part of the surplus to finance the disaster relief fund."@en1
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