Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-14-Speech-2-090"
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"en.20040914.8.2-090"2
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".
Madam President, in my first speech in plenary as Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, I would like to draw attention to the fact that as well as the new faces among us, there will be another new aspect to the 2005 budget, to which Mrs Schreyer has already referred. Not only is this the first full annual budget for an EU of 25 Member States and a new European Commission, as well as for basic European institutions whose composition has been changed or adjusted as a result of enlargement, from the Court of Justice to the Ombudsman, it is also the first year of implementation of the new Staff Regulations.
Despite this, our work will continue to be characterised by continuity, on the basis of the formal and informal rules of negotiation introduced by our predecessors. This is therefore the right time and place to pay tribute to our predecessors’ achievements, as the last parliamentary term was extremely productive. Parliament established its position as an equal arm of the EU’s budgetary power and as an equal participant in the EU’s budgetary procedure, and the credit for this should go to our predecessors, in particular to Terence Wynn, Chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
At the same time as continuing our work on the 2005 budget this year, we must heed the message from the European elections. Many voters gave us a clear message by not voting in these elections. There is an increasing need for an easy—to-understand added value obtained with taxpayers’ money, as well as for transparency and rationality in budget expenditure and for an appropriate channelling of funds to tasks which will bring visible benefits both to local communities and to the environment.
I say this in the context of one of the votes that took place earlier today, on an amendment transferring the 2003 budgetary surplus of around EUR 5.5 billion into the 2004 budget. In real terms, however, and taking into account the previous amendments to the budget, the surplus amounted to over EUR 10 billion, which is equivalent to one tenth of the EU’s 2003 budget. This also means that financial programming, in the sense of well-defined financial resources for legislative tasks and initiatives, remains an important task for the coming years of this parliamentary term.
It should come as no surprise that as someone from behind the former Iron Curtain I will be sensitive to the budgetary situation of the new Member States, and of course these Member States can already speak up for themselves. The aspirations of around 80 million people should not be limited and reduced to monetary transfers. I am however aware of the thoroughness with which Council and Commission proposals are examined in Warsaw, Prague, Tallinn and other cities, for example the proposal to make savings of around 3 billion zloty under the Structural Funds, or to reduce the funding for agricultural subsidies. These proposals are being examined in the context of the provisions of the accession treaties.
In this connection, I note with satisfaction that among the various savings there was no change to the funding allocated for enlargement of the EU to include Bulgaria and Romania. In budgetary terms this confirms the political will to see accession in 2007.
Parliament’s view on the 2005 budget will emerge from the amendments currently being tabled, although of course it will not merely be the sum of these amendments. The deadline for the committees is tomorrow and that for the political groups is next week, in order to prepare for a first reading on 28 October of this year.
If one aspect were to be highlighted as characterising this debate, both in plenary and in the Committee on Budgets, it is a tone of aversion to the horizontal cuts carried out mechanically by the Council in various areas, above all in Headings 3, 4 and 5. This is due to concern over whether there will be sufficient funding for Parliament’s traditional priorities, as well as concern that the justifiable funding needs of the common foreign and security policy, for example, do not become an automatic problem, but a problem to be solved in the framework of all the financial commitments under Heading 4. In our opinion all these issues deserve a more individualised approach.
Madam President, in view of the short initiation I have had into the EU’s budgetary matters, it is appropriate today for my comments to be restrained and economical, just like the EU’s budget. I would like to leave all remaining matters to the rapporteurs."@en1
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