Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-09-Speech-2-257"
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"en.20040309.10.2-257"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, I rejoice that we are now at the start of the final stage of a short but intensive process. We are able to complete the programme and thereby guarantee that young people and youth organisations will be able to implement their programmes. This has been a very intensive period and we have again been under pressure of time. I would like that to be different for new programmes in the future, so that we have a bit more time available for more precise elucidation of the individual positions and more opportunities for discussion.
What this is primarily about is supporting youth groups, something that must be of particular concern to us if we want to build up confidence in Europe or in the European Union, for then it is young people who best understand Europe and who are least likely to have problems when it comes to abandoning their prejudices. Because that has to be encouraged, they also have to be got more involved in the European process. There are various ways in which this can be done: one central office is the Youth Forum, which maintains contacts in the various countries and does many difficult, necessary and useful things alongside young people, enabling them to live in democratic association within Europe and beyond it.
Today we are debating three reports; although this is a joint debate, they cannot all be considered in the same way, as their substance has to do with different responsibilities, which need to be taken into account appropriately. It has been proposed that the action programmes be harmonised as regards the long-fought-for share of cofinance, the principle of degressivity, and their duration. It will, no doubt, be very difficult in practical terms to have them running until 2008.
We have had lengthy talks about the 20% equal share in cofinance, which will not quite work, as several organisations, especially in the educational sphere, get such minimal support that further cutbacks would mean that support would effectively lapse. For youth organisations, then, the figure 20% is just about acceptable, as finding sponsors is a recurrent problem. Businesses are unable to devote themselves to young people on top of the economic situation. Organisations in many other areas of activity find it significantly easier to find sponsors than do those dealing with young people, which is why the latter need our particular support.
I would also like degressivity, according to which two and a half per cent of the previous year’s grant is to be retained from the third year onwards, to benefit the groups and youth organisations that have not been covered by that date. This will become particularly important in the aftermath of enlargement. After 1 May, there will be more young people for us to reach. We have to invest more and we have to give them strong support.
Those youth organisations whose aim is to advance international dialogue among young people and to present information on relevant topics to as large a young public as possible are also conduits for the European Union’s views. What matters is not just promoting young people’s interests, but also communicating material that relates to what they are interested in. Whilst we have to take their interests into account, they also themselves have to make their own contribution and thereby further reflect the whole range of European policy to their fullest extent. The future of the European Union is in the hands of young people, and we should not forget that."@en1
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