Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-14-Speech-2-190"
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"en.20041214.12.2-190"2
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"Mr President, I would like to apologise yet again for not being at the conciliation meeting, which was a very lengthy and hard-fought affair. I pay tribute to the new Commissioner, and particularly the minister, who was in charge.
I heard reports that the Council of Ministers was at one in its stance on what the level of spending should be. As someone from the United Kingdom – although not of the same political party as the government – I very much welcome its statement, together with that of five other countries, that there should be no level of spending above one per cent of GNI or GDP. I am delighted that the outcome of this conciliation was exactly that.
As regards the agencies, more thought needs to be given to the question of their income in the future. I welcome the move away from in-house activity, away from the Commission and into arms-length agencies; but these have mushroomed, which is a sign of their success. We now need to look at how much more income they can achieve from outside sources instead of just being given grant-in-aid or subsidies from this Parliament. I speak here as someone who was chief executive of the National Building Agency in the United Kingdom. We had to turn around very quickly from being 85 per cent supported by grants or subsidies to being wholly self-supporting. It can be done. However, I am not saying the change needs to be that vicious.
Finally, with regard to structural funding, the very sensible agreement that was reached, namely, to reduce the spend in 2005 but to have an arrangement in readiness agreed by all parties that a supplementary and amending budget could be brought in at any time, means both that we have control over what is happening in 2005 and that reasons have to be shown why we need real spend in 2006."@en1
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