Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-07-Speech-2-150"
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"en.20050607.25.2-150"2
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"Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by responding to the last remark from the chair. It may be that the adoption of my report by a two-thirds majority of the temporary committee has made a similar result appear likely in tomorrow’s vote, and this has possibly taken some of the heat out of the issue.
I ask all of you to approve this report tomorrow in the form in which the temporary committee commends it to you. This will strengthen our negotiating position. It would also give the Commission more scope to shape the difficult process of European integration. The Financial Perspective should serve – if not entirely, at least to some extent – as an important demonstration of commitment to a more people-centred and forward-looking Europe.
When, on 15 September, the decision was taken to appoint it, the temporary committee was given a mandate to determine Parliament’s negotiating position on the political challenges and budgetary means of the enlarged European Union. After working on this for seven months, we present to you today our proposal on the negotiating position of the European Parliament. The fact that the temporary committee was able to adopt the report by a two-thirds majority in spite of all the opposing views that exist on specific points was due entirely to the close cooperation and mutual trust with which its members fulfilled their mandate.
For this reason I should like to thank you first of all, Mr President, in your capacity as chairman of the temporary committee, and to express my special thanks to the coordinators and the highly dedicated Members who were responsible for drafting the opinions of their respective committees. I thank all of you sincerely for our close and fruitful cooperation over these past months. I should also like to add a special word of thanks to the staff of the Secretariat, every one of whom did fantastic work for us all.
Following our deliberations on 22 working papers, our discussions with 17 committees, which have given their opinions, and also our hearings with delegations from the national parliaments, to which I attach great importance, this report can make good our claim, as an institution, to have analysed and assessed the Commission’s proposals most carefully and most intensively. This means that the result we present to you today represents a robust, coherent and comprehensive solution.
Without Parliament’s consent, there will be no Financial Perspective. We want a solution, but we are not prepared to sell our soul for it. We have endorsed the parts of the Commission’s proposals that we considered to be right and proper, particularly with regard to the aims of more growth and employment as proclaimed in the Lisbon Strategy. We have made cuts where appropriate without endangering the integration process. We have set our own political priorities, and we do not intend to confine our discussion to mere number-crunching but to make the absolutely essential improvements to the basic conditions for annual budgeting by simplifying the programmes. We have tried to walk the tightrope between synergy and subsidiarity without ever losing sight of our obligation to exercise budgetary discipline.
We have also, for the sake of democratic legitimacy, advocated synchronisation of the term of the Financial Perspective with Parliament’s legislative term and the Commission’s term of office. We want to see a binding obligation to simplify programmes as well as reform of the Financial Regulation, and we insist that the new legislation on multiannual programmes must preserve the rights of Parliament in full and as a matter of course in every single area of activity, including areas such as foreign policy.
A solution on the expenditure side will only be feasible if it is accompanied by short-term and long-term solutions on the Union’s own resources, corrective mechanisms designed to improve the internal balance of the budget. If we nail our colours to the mast by calling for more research and development and for lifelong learning, the public will expect us to deliver these things. If, at the same time, we proclaim our support for cohesion in full awareness of the current state of the debate within the Council, and if we are also compelled to acknowledge that the present debates in the Council on citizenship of the Union – on the protection of our citizens against internal dangers and on the protection of our external borders – and on the role of the EU as a global partner manifestly confront us with a problem of chronic underfunding of strategic policy areas, it becomes clear that this will be a subject on which we shall have to engage in some tough negotiating with the Council.
Given the prospect of this difficult debate and in the light of our experience with Agenda 2000, we believe that a new instrument to provide reserves and flexibility on the basis of existing agreements is an absolutely essential agenda item for the forthcoming negotiations. At the end of the day, we arrived at figures that boil down to 1.18% in commitment appropriations and 1.07% in payment appropriations."@en1
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