Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-05-Speech-2-223"
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"en.20050705.26.2-223"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, cohesion policy is one of the pillars of European integration. It will become even more important during the next programming period, since it will act as a tool both for reducing economic differences between regions and for making Europe more competitive on the global market.
Although I very much appreciate the work done by all those involved in formulating Parliament’s position on the drafts, I am disappointed at the lack of interest that has been shown to date in most of the new Member States’ demands and needs. The debates that have lasted for many months within the Committee on Regional Development have left me with the impression that the suggestions made by Members from the new Member States have not been given due consideration. By way of contrast, a great deal of attention has been paid to the needs of other players, such as the former cohesion countries, and to remote regions and regions affected by the statistical effect. Their demands were not only listened to, but also given due attention. I find the attitude of Members from the former cohesion countries particularly irksome in this connection, since they have so far snubbed our proposals to keep the current rules in place, even though they themselves benefited from these rules in the past. I am thinking in particular of the n+3 rule for the Cohesion Fund and of the rule classing VAT as eligible expenditure for non-taxpayers.
I regret to have to say that the majority of concessions made to the new Member States related either to the report on the current Structural Funds Regulation or to the report on the Cohesion Fund. Parliament is not entitled to make direct changes to the Commission’s proposals in either of these cases. The same demands were flatly refused in the case of the proposal on the European Regional Development Fund, however, to which we are entitled to make changes. To put it another way, concessions have only been made to the new Member States in instances where they are of very limited significance.
As I see it, a decision to remove VAT entirely from the list of eligible expenses would be a major political blunder, not to mention insensitive treatment of the new Member States. It could prompt tens of millions of citizens in these countries to ask whether they are really being treated equally, given that they are being denied the benefits of advantageous rules that the old Member States enjoyed for many years. I should therefore like to call upon the goodwill and understanding of this House, and I would ask Members to vote in favour of keeping these rules in place during the 2007-2013 period."@en1
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