Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-22-Speech-2-122"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20021022.6.2-122"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a great deal has already been said about this budget and a number of speakers have followed the trend started by the President of the Commission. If everything is stupid, the very rigour of this budget is stupid. If the Stability Pact is stupid, if it needs to be revised in order to make our countries and our economies less rigid, then, Commissioner, if anything can be described as great stupidity here, it is the stupidity which leads us, while ten countries are knocking on our door, to restrict ourselves with a highly complex budget that is pared down to the very minimum, forcing us to use all our ingenuity – and, in this regard, I pay homage to the skill of our rapporteur – in order to be able to make any provision at all for Afghanistan and many other subjects, a budget, lastly, that remains fixed and, if possible, even smaller than before. All this at a time when our States – and your President echoed this very eloquently – believe that we need to break the locks of laws that appear stupid, even to the States which are the guardians of these laws.
Let us also, therefore, consider the budget in this light. I do not feel this budget takes account of the facts. I believe that, at this time of enlargement, the Convention certainly needs to consider a new European Treaty, it needs to consider giving Parliament more powers, as it could certainly use them, but also, most of all, it needs to consider the fact that 25 States cannot operate with a reduced budget designed for 15. That is what I wanted to say in relation to the current climate.
With regard to Thursday’s vote, I feel that, yesterday, in the Committee on Budgets, we envisaged a measure that I consider important. We have just learnt that North Korea is surreptitiously using the civil nuclear programme we are funding, at a high cost of over EUR 20 million, for military purposes, in deliberate violation of the agreements concluded with the international community. We believe we could strike a blow, when voting on the budget, by placing the appropriations concerned on reserve: this, Commissioner, could perhaps be a way forward, not least where the Council is concerned.
Lastly, we have a budget which I believe to be innovative in other areas."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples