Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-06-Speech-2-192"
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"en.20050906.31.2-192"2
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".
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, for several years now I have represented my group and the European Parliament in the July budget conciliation procedure, which is conducted with the Member States after the first reading by the Council. It has always been difficult to agree on anything in the summer, but this year it was especially difficult. In practical terms, nothing was agreed on, and, as a result, Parliament is free to undertake its own first reading without any commitments to the Council.
From my group’s point of view, the basic problems are the low level of budget payment appropriations and the budget’s main areas of focus. In the Council there is a group of so-called net contributing countries, which are not interested in the value added that results from financing the Union by way of different joint projects. Virtually the only thing that the Council seems to be actively interested in financing is the militarisation of the EU. Although warfare does not fall within the competence of the EU, the Member States want to finance joint militarisation projects with EU money. As far as I understand, the Congo police operation and the mission in Sudan are being financed out of development appropriations, and the funding of militarisation activities is therefore not transparent.
Although the Constitution, which was rejected in two referenda, is not immediately forthcoming, the political elite in the Member States are implementing some of the articles contained in it, and are establishing, for example, an Armaments, Research and Capabilities Agency. The way that the Member States behave is undemocratic, and it is very obvious that many EU joint military activities have no legal basis in the Treaties. Instead of the militarisation of the EU, we should start to talk about building a social Europe. Only that way will the work of the Union acquire legitimacy, which is to say the general approval of the public.
In the name of a social Europe, our group has continually criticised the narrow scope of the Lisbon Strategy; because it merely promotes a Europe of major companies. We recently criticised the way the Council has kept its eyes and ears firmly closed and cut expenditure, even when compared to the Commission’s draft budget, with the aim of reducing appropriations in the budget to 1% of the Gross National Income of the EU states. Stringent budgetary discipline is a good thing, but in this case the Council is advocating a sound thrashing.
A strategic objective is also there for us all to see. In the event of no agreement being reached on the financial frameworks and the matter being referred to the budgetary procedure within the meaning of Article 272 of the Treaty, the grand total for the 2006 budget must, from the point of view of the Council, be as small as possible. This is a strategic objective that we cannot accept.
Our group is also concerned about the strategy whereby the costs of sudden and unexpected expenditure, such as that relating to the tsunami, are to be covered by allocating for new purposes money that had been set aside for purposes approved by Parliament. If new, external needs arise, we have to be prepared to allocate new, ‘fresh’ money for them.
Finally, I wish to say that we need to safeguard Structural Funds payments and increase human resources for the needs of enlargement. It is very difficult for us in Parliament to understand the conflict which prevails between the Commission and the Council with regard to their views on personnel requirements and the need for increased human resources as a result of enlargement."@en1
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