Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-17-Speech-2-168"
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"en.20021217.5.2-168"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to thank the general rapporteurs, Mr Färm and Mr Stenmarck, for their astute handling of the matter and achievement of a compromise which has allowed us to reach our goal with a result which Parliament finds satisfactory, on the whole. As many of you are aware, I have expressed some concern at a number of decisions, particularly the cut in payment appropriations for category 2 of the Structural Funds. However, although I do not view the compromise reached with enthusiasm, I do understand how it has come about, given the enormous pressure from the Member States to reduce the amount of payments which, I regret to say, are increasing at a slower rate than inflation.
I do not want to focus on the content of the budget but to talk about something else. This is a transitional budget: as Mr Walter said, it shows us the tough reality of figures which are, once again, a reflection of the miserly rigidity of the States. One would have to be blind not to see that we have entered a new phase in European history. Copenhagen is a historic milestone. Those who have believed in enlargement have had to have genuine visionary powers, the visionary powers of Spinelli, Monnet and Schumann before us. Is it really impossible to be visionaries once again when it comes to the budget too? We cannot build a European power with miserly States. Will there come a day when the Financial Perspective will be established on the basis of a burst of generosity, from the Netherlands for example, with the Solidarity Fund entirely financed by Luxembourg for instance, with the Committee on Budgetary Control urging us to spend more rather than less, with the Member States calculating not what comes in and what goes out of their pockets but what Europe genuinely needs to meet the needs of its citizens?"@en1
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