Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-10-Speech-2-179"
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"en.20040210.9.2-179"2
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"Mr President, I have on several occasions, on behalf of my group, denounced the propensity of the European Council to set new priorities for the European Union while refusing to grant it the commensurate financial resources. All too often this short-sighted policy has caused us to abandon an area that is deemed to be crucial one day in favour of another area that is deemed of vital importance the next. It is by robbing Peter to pay Paul that we have, on average, survived on a derisory budget. In 2004 this reached a historic low, below 1% of GDP, which is 20% less than the ceiling on which the Fifteen had themselves agreed for the period 2000-2006.
With enlargement on the horizon, this short-term vision of the Union’s responsibilities is now creating a potentially explosive situation. If the six Member States that are net contributors to the European budget actually go ahead with their plan to freeze expenditure at current levels from 2007, many fine promises will go up in smoke! The major works projects, rather hastily baptised the ‘growth initiative’, risk being buried once again. As for regional and social aid and the appropriations for the Cohesion Fund, they will melt away like snow in the sun for the majority of their current beneficiaries and many of their future recipients. Farewell cohesion! Farewell solidarity! On a social level this is known as cynicism; on a political level we call it irresponsibility.
I might have severe words for the Member States concerned, but this does not mean that I am awarding any plaudits to the Commission. Your communication, Mr President of the Commission, is rather sketchy when it comes to the choices that will have to be made to meet emerging needs. Where is your previous ambition, although there is clearly more to responding to the challenge of ensuring the balanced development of an enlarged European Union than just increasing the financial perspective by one or two tenths of a per cent of GDP? I would remind you that by 2007 the Union’s population will have increased by a third. The income of our new Members is less than half that of the Fifteen and, from many points of view, I do not think that the famous acquis communautaire is doing them any favours. I therefore remain unsatisfied, Mr Prodi.
I would add that the Commission’s position is not without its contradictions. On the one hand, it legitimately expects a number of Member States to increase their net contribution to the Community budget, but on the other it pushes the cult of limiting public expenditure so far as to take the Council of Ministers to court for not respecting the Stability Pact. Polite requests or punishment: you have a choice.
Furthermore, many problems remain outstanding. I will mention just one: the regions that in the future will essentially be deprived of benefiting from the Structural Funds, despite the fact that there has been no significant change in their situation. Quite simply, the arrival of poorer regions in the Union will automatically – I would say bureaucratically – lower the threshold for becoming eligible for these funds. It is understandable that the forthcoming negotiations are giving serious cause for concern more or less everywhere. These are all symptoms of what to me is looking increasingly like a crisis in the European project.
After the split on the war in Iraq, the ‘stupid’ affair of the Stability Pact and the breakdown of the Brussels Summit on the Constitution, we now have the debate on the budget to expose in a new and edifying way just how bad things really are. It would appear to be absolutely essential to re-found Europe. Faced with the risk of a dangerous wave of disenchantment amongst the public, as I see it our only hope is to be found in the growing call for a new kind of Europe. The coming months will be decisive in determining whether a beautiful utopia is waxing or waning."@en1
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