Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-14-Speech-2-175"
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"en.20041214.12.2-175"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, difficult negotiations have concluded with a creditable result. For this we should thank the rapporteurs, Mr Garriga Polledo and Mrs Jensen, all the political groups and the new Commissioner, who has given us valuable help and whose good wishes I gladly reciprocate.
The agreement can be seen as satisfactory to Parliament because it brings with it many positive outcomes. It has been a difficult passage, but we have got through it, and have obtained funding for reconstruction in Iraq, the maintenance of traditional geographical policies, funds for SMEs, information and research as well as resources for the agencies. Also entered in the budget are resources for the structural funds and pilot projects, some of which are very interesting, such as Erasmus for apprentices and the pilot projects on conflict prevention and on small arms reduction.
We cannot, however, pronounce ourselves satisfied with the way in which the chapter on payment appropriations was concluded. I am well aware that this is not the fault of either Parliament or the Commission, which in fact helped us and pressed as hard as it could. However, the stone-cold inflexibility with which the Council stuck by the 1% is worthy of a better cause and does not augur well either for negotiations on the Financial Perspective or for the next budget, for which I hope that it will be possible to achieve more ambitious and gratifying goals, as Mrs Guy-Quint also said.
We have gone a little beyond the 1% mark. It was right to give this signal, as Parliament will not accept a Financial Perspective which forces the Union to forsake its own tasks and duties, which are enshrined in the treaties. Peculiar ideas are circulating and sometimes a kind of psychological bullying is also used towards the new Member States to make them maintain the so-called rigorous line.
Ladies and gentlemen, rigour consists in transparent, effective and efficient administration, but it does not mean refusing to act with the leadership expected by European citizens. Article 158 of the Treaty affirms that economic and social cohesion policy is one of Europe’s main tasks. Anyone thinking of pared-down budgets, of reducing and concentrating the structural funds on certain areas only, of renationalising the cohesion policy and depriving the Lisbon strategy of the requisite resources should be aware right now that they will be met with the firm opposition of this Parliament."@en1
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