Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-06-Speech-2-039"
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like at the outset to reiterate my thanks to my fellow-members of the Committee for their constructive cooperation, but would also like to thank the Temporary Committee on the Financial Perspective, which has played a substantial part in ensuring, not only that PROGRESS is now a good instrument for the better implementation of the social policy agenda, but also that we will have enough money to be able to really ensure greater sustainability.
The possibility of participation in PROGRESS must also be open to national and regional non-governmental organisations. It therefore follows that the maximum co-funding should continue to stand at 90% and not at something like 80%, which would be a cause of major difficulties to many EU networks.
PROGRESS represents a response to the results of the Eurobarometer surveys, for what the public wants is greater involvement on the part of the EU in the combating of unemployment and poverty. For that, though, a primary requirement is for well-organised and structured sharing of experience, with it being particularly necessary that we should promote to a far greater degree the process of learning from one another, whether by supporting European networks, setting in motion Europe-wide studies and analyses or even by means of conferences. This is the only way in which we will succeed in maintaining, in future, the highest possible level of social protection throughout Europe, on which, after all, the maintenance of a peaceful society and social cohesion in the European Union depends. That is something that the Member States now, at last, appear to have realised.
Let me now turn to the Commission proposal, to which we have proposed a range of improvements and additions. The improvements primarily have to do with an increase in the overall appropriations and certain changes to the way in which they are distributed among the various areas targeted. What this boils down to is that we have now voted PROGRESS EUR 225 million more than the Commission originally allocated it, and I might also mention that this sum takes estimated inflation into account.
There was one of the fields to which the PROGRESS programme applies for which we, together with the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, had to fight particularly hard, and that was gender mainstreaming. Without wanting to reopen old wounds, I have to say that I am firmly convinced that, if there are in future to be no more officially free-standing action programmes to promote equality of opportunity, reinforcing this in all areas to which the programme relates and measures taken under it is what is needed to win over the Women’s Committee.
Moreover, our Committee was not prepared to accept the cuts in the resources set aside for gender mainstreaming that the Council and the Commission sought. We are reversing many of these cuts, but, rather than taking the money away from other important target areas, we have done this by voting to make the very high flexibility margin of 10% less rigid and thus make it possible for the share allocated to gender equality to be increased by 4% to its present 12% share of the budget for PROGRESS.
The Committee also regards five points in this programme as being particularly important, and I expect the Commission to support us in this. For a start, we want to make the individual target areas more visible, which means that the programme committee needs to have five sub-committees, and also needs to organise for each target area an annual exchange of views on the way in which the programme is put into effect, enabling each of these committees to join with the specialist committees in this House in debating it.
Secondly, we want the transnational exchange to be maintained in future, for that alone will provide Europe with the added value that we want, and, thirdly, we want PROGRESS to help to really get the experience gained from the programme circulated among the Member States faster than the current programmes have done.
We in this Parliament do of course now want – and this is my fourth point – to be more closely involved in monitoring the programme. As I see it, the mere fact that the programme is to run for seven years makes this an absolute necessity. We therefore believe that the distribution of the annual funding around the individual target areas should not be a responsibility for the programme committee but rather a matter for the Budget procedure each year.
That brings me to my last point, the role of the social partners and non-governmental organisations. The Committee found the Commission’s desire to limit their role to no more than the pursuit of the EU’s objectives incomprehensible. We regard their involvement in the ongoing development of strategies as indispensable."@en1
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