Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-22-Speech-3-053"
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"en.20050622.13.3-053"2
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"Madam President, last week’s European Council was a great disappointment. No agreement could be reached on its own view regarding the new financial perspective, although the current one is due to expire next year. Accordingly, it is an urgent matter to establish a new one.
The European Parliament decided on its own position at the start of June. That decision was reached after a full examination of all the EU’s main policy areas. That is why Parliament’s conclusions are clear and sound.
The summit discussions were dominated by the quarrel between Great Britain and France over Britain’s rebate and the EU’s agricultural policy. Rarely, hardly ever in fact, have the Member State’s shares of net contributions become such dominant issues as now. Perhaps the only solution to the argument is to be found in the joint financing of agricultural subsidies, which Parliament is hinting at. Its gradual implementation at the same time as a reduction in Great Britain’s rebate could create an adequate basis for a compromise.
The EU needs an interinstitutional agreement on the financial framework. Without one, we could of course draw up an annual budget on the basis of Article 272 of the Treaty, but it will not guarantee sustained and balanced development of the different policy areas. Most multi-annual programmes will be discontinued at the end of 2006. Of these, the main ones concern regional and structural policy, rural development, research and development policy, and many other areas. The new legislative plans for these areas are now being debated in Parliament, but it is difficult to make the final decisions when one does not know how much will be available in the form of appropriations.
The situation seems to become especially problematic with regard to the one issue that really is the focal point of the financial perspective, which is increased competitiveness. The intention is to treble research and development funds for growth and employment, the funding of training programmes, and Trans-European networks. The situation mow seems quite wretched. The funding would already have been halved in the proposals for a compromise, and now we do not have any finance policies at all.
Regional and structural policy also demands a solution. When financing for the present programming period was decided at the Agenda 2000 talks in Berlin, just six months before that period began, the outcome was that structural policy should be put on hold for nearly three years. The Member States and the Commission did not have time to draw up and adopt the programmes faster. Now the situation is still more difficult, as we have 10 new Member States for which it is a problem even to estimate the extent of future structural and cohesion policy. The next country to hold the presidency, Great Britain, cannot expect to while away the time doing nothing: we expect it to come up with proposals and solutions."@en1
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