Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-06-Speech-2-191"
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"en.20050906.31.2-191"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Lewis, when weighing up the draft budget for 2006, we cannot fail to notice that it is a transitional one, and that is what makes it so crucial in terms of the further priorities and ambitions that we share – or, at any rate, should share. It is for that reason that I will be forthright in criticising the Council proposal on one score: it is far too cautious and envisages cuts that are massive when seen alongside those proposed by the Commission.
In order to make clear what I mean by calling this budget transitional, let us take a look at the Böge report and at what we expect of the Financial Perspective. There is a major difference between us and the Council; it adds up to EUR 106 billion in the Financial Perspective. We believe that, in order to make Europe truly fit for the future, we have to focus on quite specific target areas: research, education, youth, cultural interchange in an enlarged Europe, the environment and renewable energies – and I have recent events in New Orleans in mind when I say that.
A look at the budget figures in Parliament’s financial perspective and, now, in the Council draft for 2006 reveals that they diverge to a marked degree: the Financial Perspective makes EUR 10 billion available for research, but the Council a mere EUR 4 billion; there are EUR 2 billion for education, culture and young people, over against the Council’s mere EUR 0.8 billion for the same period. For energy and transport, Parliament has proposed EUR 2.5 billion, but the Council no more than EUR 1.3 billion. From that alone, it is apparent that the Council’s proposals for the 2006 financial year are timid, cautious and lacking virtually any concept of future direction.
As I see it, the draft budget for 2006 ought, instead, to be a sort of bridge extending into the years that are to come, from 2007 to 2013, and so putting forward such timid and paltry budget estimates as the Council has done is the wrong way to go about things. The figures it has quoted to us bear no relation either to the pious utterance about Lisbon as a means of renewal or to the great economic potential that we have to rebuild.
If I may turn to the communications strategy, let me say that, especially after the failure of the referenda, it must surely be in our interest to do more in 2006, rather than to cut payments or make less use of the flexibility instrument. I find it incomprehensible in political terms how, in the face of the many challenges we have to contend with across the globe, the Council can be so timid and cautious in its handling of the flexibility instrument, instead of demonstrating the European Union’s willingness to be a global player in meeting the needs of the world’s many crisis hotspots."@en1
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