Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-06-Speech-2-223"
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"en.20050906.32.2-223"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am here today to talk about the amending budget for which we have been waiting for so long. It relates to the activities that we committed to financing in order to support the reconstruction of the countries affected so seriously by the tsunami in December 2004. Like you, I deplore the Council’s attitude. The budgetary authority has taken all this time to release the promised funds. In January, or even back in December, the EU promised EUR 350 million. Nine months later, we are only just going to manage to donate EUR 170 million over 2005. On 27 April, the Commission proposed a preliminary draft budget and called for the necessary mobilisation of the flexibility instrument to a level of EUR 98 million.
The Council, however, would not hear of this mobilisation. You know, it is a terrible thing, this Council’s slogan is ‘Hands off my money!’ It is terrible that we have a budgetary authority that takes on responsibilities and commitments, but refuses to see them through. We have therefore had to negotiate bitterly in Parliament over the last few months in a struggle to extract EUR 15 million from the flexibility fund. That is why we have had to reallocate EUR 60 million from other humanitarian actions in order to reach a balance and to find the EUR 170 million. I have to tell you that we consider this to be a scandal, because no poor country has become richer; quite the opposite, poverty is spreading in all these countries. There is still EUR 70 million in the emergency reserve; let us hope that we will not need it at the end of the year.
Of course, we support this agreement because it is urgently needed by the populations and citizens affected by the tsunami. But what a mockery! Gentlemen of the Council, I would ask two things of you: first of all, do not make any more promises, because you are never able to keep them. Secondly, I must tell you that you have notified us, but what good is the Council’s commitment with regard to the financial perspectives? I now turn to Mr Böge to say: let us take account of this event, of this problem, when negotiating the next financial perspectives. Even where the Council has taken note of it, it does not keep its word or its commitments. Yes, the European Union really is sick. The citizens have noticed it, but in general the fault is with the Member States, who have forgotten that we need to build the European Union together, for the citizens of Europe, but also for the position and the generosity of Europe, because we have a duty towards all the countries of the world, and more particularly towards the people affected by the tsunami."@en1
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