Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-23-Speech-2-210"
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are about to vote on a 2004 budget which is, in a manner of speaking, historic because it will be the first budget of a reunited Europe.
I think these few explanations on this point will satisfy Mr Seppänen’s request. The flaw in the 1994-1999 management was precisely the lack, Mr Seppänen, of what you called a
. We now have one with the new n+2 rule and it is starting to bear fruit.
My third and final point is the structural-policy consequences of enlargement. The success of this enlargement, taking in 10 new Member States, is the Commission’s top priority.
Cohesion policy is also a top priority. The big challenge facing us is to complete negotiations with all the new Member States before the end of 2003 on the programmes that will have to be operational in a few months’ time for the very short period 2004-2006. Enlargement is therefore already part of the everyday lives of our directorates-general responsible for the Structural Funds and your constant support – which I will still need for the crucial period ahead – has enabled me to anticipate the Commission’s commitments.
What are the budgetary effects of this enlargement? For commitment appropriations, for the structural funds and the Cohesion Fund, in addition to the 34 billion provided for the present Member States, an additional EUR 6.7 billion is earmarked for the new Member States. That is an increase of around 20%. In terms of human resources, the number of posts requested to guarantee the success of this enlargement is, it seems to me, modest. If you accede to the Commission’s requests, the directorates-general concerned will increase their staff by only 7% to manage a 20% increase in appropriations. This increase in our administrative capacity is a minimum because these countries are not yet used to Community programmes. They will therefore need more support, more advice, and more controls, too, than the present members. That is my objective answer to Mrs Gill’s comment that she would like us to make economies of scale. Quite honestly, a mission to Poland cannot be combined with a mission to Spain. However that may be, I thank you for your support in obtaining the human resources essential for guaranteeing the success of our cohesion policy in 2004 and beyond.
In conclusion, Mr President, what are the consequences of all this for the payment appropriations needed for 2004? So far as enlargement is concerned, it is not really an issue. As was decided in Copenhagen, payment appropriations for the new Member States in 2004 have been confined to advances. For the 2000-2006 programmes, your rapporteur, Mr Mulder, suggests increasing payment appropriations by 3 billion. If Member States’ forecasts are to be believed, that will be necessary. It is true that if the Member States manage to avoid any decommitment under the n+2 rule, we would then need an extra 1 billion for the ERDF alone. As you see, the Commission has adopted a prudent and realistic approach in the light of the implementation of earlier years. I think some decommitments under the n+2 rule will be unavoidable in 2004. We will also have to get used to including them in our forecasts. If the payment appropriations turned out to be insufficient for the 2000-2006 Structural Funds and for closing the 1994-1999 period, the Commission would then ask for an additional amending budget during the 2004 financial year.
Finally, for the 1994-1999 programmes it is clear that we will need appropriations in 2004 to complete the closure beyond the Commission’s preliminary draft budget. I cannot yet say how much those appropriations will amount to. The checks currently being made will certainly result in reductions in the amounts to pay, either by excluding amounts which are not legitimate or by applying financial corrections. Over all, on the basis of the information I have available, an increase in heading 2 payment appropriations would not be illegitimate while not perhaps going as far as Mr Mulder suggests. At this stage, however, I would prefer to confront the Member States with their responsibilities and get them in the end to make realistic forecasts, even if that means increasing the appropriations under management in an amending budget when we have all the data.
Finally, Mr Dell'Alba, we have had a very important dialogue and, like my colleague Mr Vitorino this morning, I have paid great attention to it. I can confirm that of the 12 million available this year for information on the great debate on the future of Europe, 8.3 million are in the process of being or have already been committed. There are 3.7 million remaining, which can be redeployed. Like Mr Vitorino, I will endeavour to propose a use for this money by the end of the year, perhaps in partnership with Parliament, for an information campaign or to compile documents that will help to explain the outcome of the Convention and, I hope, the outcome of the Intergovernmental Conference, but also to show how this new institutional architecture we are going to have can be useful for specific policies to benefit the citizens. We are thinking of a new document – we discussed it with some parliamentary officials this morning – that could be made available to Members of Parliament and European election candidates to show specifically what this new Constitution consists of and how it can be useful for specific policies to benefit the citizens. That is the information I wanted to give you on this specific point that Mr Dell'Alba raised.
Before mentioning three points, I would like to say to Mrs Weiler that I have noted the perspectives that she outlined, which have in fact more to do with future regional policy, its appraisal and how that regional policy and cohesion policy can be made to serve the Lisbon or Göteborg objectives. That is precisely what the college is discussing at the moment in preparation for future financial perspectives and for the content and proposals of the third cohesion report. Thank you very much for the impetus you have given.
Mr President, I would, therefore, like to mention three points:
the 2000-2006 programmes
the closure for the period 1994-1999, and
the structural policy consequences of enlargement.
My first point is that the 2000-2006 programmes are honestly making up lost time. This is the fruit of the simplifications we have proposed and undertaken with the Member States. The payments for 2000-2006 were made more quickly than before. At the end of August, we had already paid 25% more than at the same time in 2002. For the first time, the 2000-2006 payments could even be higher than forecast and I anticipate asking for at least EUR 1 billion more in objective 1 appropriations when the overall end-of-year transfer is made. We can also see here the effect of the n+2 rule about which we alerted ministers on 22 April last, as I informed your committees. Between 1 January and 1 September, the governments reduced the backlog of payment appropriations that had to be dealt with in order to avoid decommitments. To avoid any decommitment, I am also going to write to every government again and they will have to present us with another 5 billion in payments by the end of the year. If their forecasts are to be believed, it will be done, but, ladies and gentlemen, to be perfectly honest I no longer give much credence to Member States’ forecasts when I get them. Having said that, Italy, which has got us used to miracles, accounts for 40% of the effort that still has to be made. Three states alone account for 80% of the remaining effort. Conversely, in Austria, Spain and Greece the risk is very low and there is therefore nothing inevitable about it.
My second point is the 1994-1999 closure. This is a difficult point, as I have often said in this House. This closure will in fact be longer than expected. It was only on 31 March last that the Commission received virtually all of the some 2 000 files to be closed for these 1994-1999 programmes. I want the necessary checks to be made and any corrections that may be necessary as a result of those checks to be completed. I do not therefore want to rush the closure of those programmes. In view of the time required to guarantee the quality of the checks and the consultations that the procedures require, ladies and gentlemen, despite the best efforts of my services and those of the Commission we shall be unable to pay all the appropriations earmarked for 1994-1999 in 2003. That is the main reason for the delays just highlighted by Mr van Dam. There is therefore a risk of under-implementation in 2003 of at least EUR 5 billion for the Structural Funds as a whole. As soon as I had identified this risk in July, I alerted my colleague Commissioner Michaele Schreyer. Together, we will shortly be proposing that the Commission submit a draft amending budget to the budgetary authority in order to cancel without delay the appropriations that would be unused. The actual amount that will have to be cancelled still needs to be clarified by Commissioner Schreyer’s services, they being the only ones with an overall picture of the budget, in order to identify any needs that will have to be covered under other budget headings between now and the end of the year.
Nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, I confirm my commitment to reducing the amount remaining to be settled in two ways: firstly by cancelling commitments not covered by a request for payment, for example when the project has been abandoned or cost less than expected (in this connection, decommitments are already being prepared; they will represent at least EUR 1.5 billion for the European Regional Development fund (ERDF) alone) and, secondly, by making as many payments as possible where the dossiers are now in order. Between payments and decommitments, I confirm that I have set myself the target of cutting by at least half what remains to be settled for 1994-1999 for the ERDF in 2003."@en1
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