Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-21-Speech-2-163"
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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, let me start by again thanking Mr Mulder for his kind words. I think it likely that we will be able to continue to enjoy excellent cooperation at the next stage of the Budget procedure.
I would like to respond briefly to Mr Perry’s comments on the way our accounts are kept. Our accounting is consistent. Year in, year out, the Court of Auditors confirms to us that the accounts accurately reflect the receipts, outgoings, assets and liabilities as at the end of the year. We are modernising it, but this accounting is consistent.
As several speakers have mentioned the Infopoints, let me reiterate that it is not the legal basis that is at issue here. Rather than being an issue identical with that of the A-30 lines, for which a legal basis appears to be needed, these are information channels, in respect of which the Commission has a prerogative. There are various aspects to this, and I know that the committee is discussing them.
I have to point out to you that there are thousands of Infopoints that function without loans from the Commission’s budget, and we must indeed not forget them. The other question will be dealt with by a group of Commissioners in preparation for the next meeting of the Inter-Institutional Group on Information.
If I may turn to the A-30 lines and the basic acts, I would like in particular to return to what was said by various speakers, notably by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, who has the hardest of tasks here in attempting to show the committees how urgently necessary this legal basis is. The Council’s failure to put sufficient emphasis on this issue is something that I find unacceptable. We simply have to bear in mind the timeframe involved. If an intermediate solution were now to be decided on, only for the Council to say, ‘marvellous, now we don’t need to do anything’, then we would very soon be facing a situation in which Parliament would be meeting for the last time before the European elections without there being a new legal basis in place.
I also think that the attitude exemplified by some elements in the Council, who say, ‘These grants are in Parliament’s interests’, to be absolutely wrong. It is also, quite obviously, in the interests of the Member States that the grants to such bodies as the Institutes in Florence and Bruges – to name but two – should be secured. To do so is, after all, in the common European interest, and that is why it is also in the common interest that these legal bases should be established as soon as possible.
Let me conclude by returning to the very important issue of aid for Iraq. The splitting of the European Union into two camps over whether or not there should be military intervention put us in a difficult position. We are agreed, though, that we want to help the people there not only with humanitarian aid, as we have done this year, but that we who belong to the European Union also want to play a part in reconstruction. At the moment, however, our actions are subject to imponderables. Who in this House can say what the situation will be in – for example – six months’ time?
As things stand, the situation is that the United Nations itself removed its personnel from Iraq a number of weeks ago, so someone will have to implement on the ground whatever aid we decide on. What matters, after all, is that what we do is realistic. Our commitment to Afghanistan, Mr Elles, was for five years. What we are trying to do right now is to make a commitment up to the end of this year, and I urge you not to lose sight of that fact. If the EUR 500 million amendment were to be adopted, what commitment should the Commission make in Madrid in view of the Council’s talking at the same time in terms of EUR 200 million? If you do not want to make cuts in category 4, the money would soon end up having to come out of an expanded flexibility reserve, and that requires a joint decision. That would mean that the Commission would be unable to make any firm commitment in Madrid, and so I ask you to reconsider this.
Mr Wynn, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, asked me a specific question about the possibility of a supplementary budget. I can tell him that it is likely that there will – as a direct consequence of the Member States’ hesitancy – be another donors’ conference, possibly next year. I would therefore ask you to consider whether it might not be possible for Parliament, at the present first reading stage, to make, by means of a motion, a declaration on the 2004 Budget in which it calls upon the Commission to present a report on the implementation and evaluation of this aid halfway through next year. If a different security situation and the resolution of other political issues then makes it possible for aid to be provided on the ground, it will be possible to consider adopting a different resolution on the amount of money involved. For the moment, I really do ask you to give the Commission a clear mandate for the donors’ conference and to make it abundantly clear that, where aid is concerned, the European Union and its Parliament now speak with one voice."@en1
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