Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-05-17-Speech-3-021"
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"en.20060517.3.3-021"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my apologies for the slight delay in my arrival. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to address your House on the subject of how our Union is to be funded in future, and on the interinstitutional agreement.
The day before yesterday – 15 May – this Interinstitutional Agreement was approved by the General Affairs Council and I ask your House to join with us in giving it your approval and adopting it today. Again, I thank you for the good negotiations and for your willingness to allow me the time today to say what I have said.
We all know that the negotiations on the Interinstitutional Agreement were never a simple matter. What made them a particular challenge this time round was the fact that there were 25 Member States to negotiate with rather than 15, not to mention the fact that your House has become, as an institution, stronger, with more clout, and, quite rightly, greater importance, and acts with the self-confidence one would expect of such a body.
I can assure you that your House’s negotiating team did not give us an easy ride. I am, however, very grateful for the consistently positive and constructive atmosphere in our conversations and negotiations, and I would like to extend very warm thanks to the team from your House that negotiated with us, consisting of Mr Lewandowski, Mr Böge, Mr Walter and Mr Mulder, for making it possible for us to do so in a constructive spirit, with one single end in view, that being to find a solution for the European Union. The way in which we worked together can be taken as an example of how our two institutions should collaborate generally, that is to say, with the political will to find a solution, even if we did perhaps start out from positions at a great distance from one another.
The result is one with which you will all be familiar, and so I would like just to sketch it out point by point; there is a detailed description of it in Mr Böge’s report. We know that there is no getting away from the fact that we will attach different values to results such as this one. It is inevitable that we cannot all be completely satisfied with what emerged from the negotiations, but I can offer you some consolation. There are some members of the Council who feel exactly the same way, that they cannot go along100% with what the presidency and your House have hammered out together. That is how it is with any and every compromise. I believe that the result is fair and evenly balanced. The mere fact that we have been able to achieve a result on a matter that is central to the European Union is something I regard as a triumph in itself. We all agree that 2005 was a difficult year for the European Union, and it was good, necessary and important that we should have been able to demonstrate the capacity to act as a European Union that currently comprises 25 Member States and will soon number 27 of them. I believe that every institution has done exactly what its responsibilities demanded of it, and that the search for the best possible European solution brought forth a climate of cooperation.
If you look at the figures, I am certain that we can, on the one hand, face the public, the taxpayers, with confidence and tell them that we are being careful with the Community’s tax revenues. On the other hand, though, we are deliberately prioritising those areas where there is a need for more growth, more jobs and a reduction in the number of unemployed, which is our common goal. If you make a comparison with what we are now, in 2006, spending on important categories such as trans-European network, education and research among others, then I think we could negotiate and agree together on decidedly marked increases for the next period.
I have just three brief observations to make. I think it would be right and proper for us to agree on a new Part 3 of the Interinstitutional Agreement, dealing with the economic management of the EU’s funds. I believe that it matters that EU funds be subject to more effective controls, and, just as I have in the past, would like to stress our willingness to engage in dialogue on the common goal of improving those controls and the ways in which we plan our finances.
Secondly, there is the overall ceiling to consider. We all know how very difficult it was to achieve consensus on this in the Council in December, and that raising this ceiling was therefore a very difficult issue for the Council. I think we really can regard the present increase in funds as a good investment, and am glad that it was eventually possible to achieve a satisfactory and well-considered compromise that has also secured the balance between the institutions and has therefore made no excessive demands on any of them.
My third point is that it is also, I think, important that we should have agreed on a statement on the review of the financial framework, one of the most important reasons for that being that it takes full account of Parliament’s rights and responsibilities.
I will conclude by saying that I have always been convinced that there can be only one common solution to the vital question of our joint financial arrangements and the agreement between the three institutions. This is a fundamental issue for the EU, and division on it would have done the Europe in which we share no good whatever. Our consensus is a demonstration of the fact that, together, we are capable of acting on behalf of this Union of ours and sends an important message to our people."@en1
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