Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-13-Speech-2-046"
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"en.20070313.6.2-046"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, there are three points I want to emphasise, and it is very much the budget aspect in which I am interested in this report that you have presented. The programme for better legislation is of course important, and it is not to be seen as an unambitious agenda, as some people make it out to be. On the contrary. Like other speakers, however, I think that the Commission could do a much better job of explaining the efforts now being made to simplify legislation, to assess the effects of new legislation and to involve the general public more effectively when we legislate. Many still see the EU as an ever more tentacular bureaucracy. That is an incorrect view, and I think it important to say so. I make these remarks now, in particular, while Commissioner Wallström is here, because it is of course you, Commissioner, who must convey this message.
My second point concerns the mid-term review of the budget, which must be prepared in 2008. On this subject, I really do hope that the Commission will be ambitious, as there is in truth good reason to doubt the Council's desire to have a genuine and open debate on shifting the priorities around over the next few years. The mid-term reform of agriculture is an important point of departure. We need a debate on the kind of agriculture we want to see, on how much or how little aid it should receive and on whether it is possible to shift resources from agricultural policy to more forward-looking areas such as research and investment in transport.
My last point is very important. It is said that new political priorities will require just under 1 500 more staff by 2008, just under 900 of whom will be new employees – some of them employed as a result of enlargement – while the remainder are to be obtained from re-prioritising. I do not know whether I am too impressed about it being possible to move 2% of staff around. I believe that we must set new guidelines for the EU’s and, specifically, the Commission’s personnel policy. Is there sufficient adaptability to ensure that the political priorities are met, and does personnel policy provide sufficient scope for employing the right experts, for example in the agencies? I think that we must include issues such as those too in any mid-term review."@en1
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