Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-07-Speech-2-175"
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"en.20050607.25.2-175"2
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"Mr President, I too must greatly commend and warmly thank our rapporteur, Mr Böge, for his thorough and proficient efforts, firstly in analysing the Commission’s proposal and then in formulating Parliament’s position on the financial perspectives. My group supports this report. This proposed basis for the negotiations with the Council is economically responsible. We have found ways of reprioritising under the Commission’s proposal and of making savings in relation to the latter.
Those of us in the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe are particularly pleased that the proposal concentrates on research, training and investments in transport and energy. It is, of course, precisely in these areas that we must invest significantly more of the EU’s budgetary means. It is in such efforts that the future lies, and they can give the EU a position of strength. That is why it is all the sadder that it is specifically in these areas that the EU’s Heads of State or Government are considering wielding the axe in order to make cuts. They want ruthlessly to cut back on our ambitious research efforts, and this is quite incomprehensible and out of step with the many fine statements from the Council about common research. It is precisely from these areas, where common efforts really could strengthen the EU’s competitiveness, that they are withdrawing and are saving amounts that, seen in a larger context, are exceedingly modest. As Commissioner Barroso did of course tell us, such savings will genuinely affect ambitions in this area.
Those of us in the ALDE Group are particularly pleased about the greater resources Parliament is setting aside for asylum and legal policy and for the common foreign policy. Legal policy is a rapidly growing area, and it is important for a large enough framework to be set aside for us to be able to respond to new needs over the next eight years. A lot can happen in eight years. Foreign policy too is an area in which new needs constantly arise. This is shown by experiences in recent years, when we suddenly had to find money for Kosovo, Afghanistan, Serbia and Iraq and, most recently, for the victims of the tsunami. The financial framework will have to take account of such sudden needs so that we do not go and cut back on aid to other poor countries.
We have attached particular importance to there being adequate resources for supporting the enlarged EU’s new neighbours. The developments in Ukraine are, of course, the latest example of the EU being able to support democratic developments in countries that are its close neighbours.
Agricultural policy and support for poor regions in the old Member States will continue to account for a lot of the budget. It is therefore necessary for the overall framework to be set high enough for it to be possible to finance new needs too. The EU budget still amounts to only approximately one per cent of gross national income, and it cannot be claimed that the amounts we are now debating are going to be the source of a budget crisis in any Member State. I wish, therefore, earnestly to call upon the European Council to find a reasonable solution at the forthcoming summit, to break the deadlock and to show that results can be delivered. I agree with Mr Böge when he says that we also want Parliament to provide a solution, but not at any price. I want to say, however, that Parliament has come up with a constructive and realistic proposal. We are obliged to find a solution so that the structural fund programmes designed to develop the economies of the new Member States can be got under way on 1 January 2007. Not to achieve a result and not to display a willingness to negotiate would simply be contemptible."@en1
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