Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-13-Speech-2-154"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20030513.7.2-154"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, allow me firstly to thank Mrs Gill for the work she has put into the 2004 budget. It has been major, important and time-consuming work, because we in actual fact have demanding and important tasks ahead of us. During my time as budget rapporteur a year ago, I observed that we were in practice concerned with three priorities. The first of these was the preparations for the forthcoming enlargement, which was less certain then than it is now. The second was necessary institutional reforms. These reforms are just as important now as they were then. The third priority was to deal with all these matters within the budgetary framework.
A year ago, we gave Parliament and other institutions the ability to engage in the long-term financial management of these matters, especially by means of the frontloading carried out during the autumn of last year. The priorities were then to be converted into figures and the calculations into euros and cents. The situation is now exactly the same a year later.
When, last December, the Copenhagen European Council decided to adopt a big bang approach, there were no doubt many of us who thought that this was one of the finest moments of all in the entire history of the EU, with a further ten countries in line to become members in time for the next elections to the European Parliament in 2004. This was subsequently followed up by decisions here in Parliament on 9 April, the signing of the accession treaties in Athens a week later and a number of successful referendums, most recently in Lithuania, something that imposes extraordinarily large demands, especially upon Europe’s elected parliaments. We have no greater challenge than this. We have just had the great pleasure of welcoming 162 observers from all those candidate countries that have carried out their negotiations successfully. All this is taking place in accordance with the timetable we discussed a year ago.
That the EU and the European Parliament must put these things into effect is, of course, self-evident to all of us who see the reunification of Europe as the most important task of all. This applies especially, of course, to the present generation of politicians. There were therefore no great difficulties in supporting the majority of the proposals tabled by Mrs Gill. I have just one thing to say by way of warning: it is our priorities with which we must be concerned. We sometimes see a tendency on the part of rapporteurs, as well as on the part of other MEPs, also to want to smuggle in other aspects. This leads to a risk of the budget’s possibly becoming difficult to manage within the framework set. It is in this situation that both budgetary authorities need to be firm and decisive. I at least hope that Parliament and the Council will reach common, early agreement this year, in the same way that we did a year ago."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples