Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-14-Speech-2-094"
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"en.20040914.8.2-094"2
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"Madam President, Mr Nicolaï, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have now reached the traditional debate on the Budget. Traditional it certainly is, and so, alas, are the Council’s proposals.
Yet again, the Council has made very substantial cuts in the Commission’s preliminary draft Budget. Many times over, alas, we have had occasion to denounce such practices in your hearing, but today, at the outset of the debates on the financial perspectives, I think we have cause to be even more perturbed by this practice, for the Budget for the EU that the Council has put forward is an extremely restrictive one. In the preliminary draft Budget, we noted that there were significant increases in payments and commitments, which were necessary to the success of enlargement, and, now that we see these increases drastically curtailed, we know that the funding will not be there to enable the European Union to back up its promises.
We find the restrictions proposed by the Council quite unacceptable, and, as previous speakers have said, that is the case under all the headings. Let me just dwell on a few points; to take one example, on the incoherence involved in reducing payments to the Structural Funds: as they have been used up, we need money in order to be able to do what we have promised. Turning to heading 3, that of internal affairs, everyone rehearsed the role of the agencies and the problems inherent in communicating with the public. I will also consider the role of micro-businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises in creating employment and will have something to say about the inconsistency of the Council’s approach to twinning.
If we want to build the European Union, the citizens have to meet each other, yet, over the six years that I have been here to debate the Budget, we have seen twinning links cut back, which amounts to denying the citizens any involvement and to implying that twinning itself is not important. We will again have to amend the drafts, terrible though that is as a way of going about things, because we are the ones who will have to do it and we will all be wasting time introducing this sort of amendment at a time when we should be pooling our resources.
I would also like to say something about the external actions. The Council’s draft Budget represents a tentative attempt at making economies in order to fund expenditure on Iraq, rather than on a truly ongoing vision of Europe’s external action. Less EUR 15 million for TACIS, less EUR 25 million for MEDA, less EUR 16 million for CARDS, less EUR 9 million for Latin America. Has poverty died out? Are there no more problems? Far from it, to be sure; what has changed is that the Commission is far better – and yes, it really is – at implementing its budgets.
We, in fact, are keen that the Council should find other means of funding Iraq, and also that the EU should keep the promises it made to all the peoples concerned, as it does those it makes to its own citizens. Yet again, the Council has opted for an actuarial approach by seeking, as a matter of priority, to make savings on the revenue needed to balance the Budget. When preparing the preliminary draft budget, the Commission had asked for 1.03% of GNP and, as if by chance, the draft budget has 0.99%, less, you see, than the symbolic figure of 1% on which some rely in order to be able to cut back their national budget. It is perfectly clear what is going on: the figures have been adopted in an attempt to get a pseudo-draft accepted. Well, we, in this House, will go ahead and do the precise opposite. We want to start from the draft and from the promises made to the public, and, on that basis, produce a budget that is well funded and of use to all. It follows that we have to clarify what our plans for today’s Europe are, and set ourselves goals, rather than decide on an arbitrary figure. As we see it, Europe’s ambition must reflect that of the Heads of State at their summits.
There is a marked contradiction between what is said by Europe’s advocates and what is said by the Council. From the point of view of the Budget, it is impossible to achieve the goals that the EU has set itself with such paltry funding. We want growth in Europe, solidarity in Europe; we want more competitiveness and more of the Lisbon spirit; we want to make Europe homogeneous and prosperous, to see it consolidating its social model and its potential for growth, for land redistribution, for investment in research, for development, for funding great political and development projects. We will see to it that Parliament will honour its promises and the undertakings that the Council has been unable to include in its draft Budgets."@en1
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