Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-23-Speech-1-191"
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"en.20070423.20.1-191"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, the annual strategy proposed by the European Commission for the 2008 budgetary procedure must strictly execute the decisions of the legislature. It must not tone them down. Despite current events being dominated by climate change – I am referring to the Stern report and the IPCC conclusions – the Commission proposal waters down the concept of sustainable development. It merely mentions the prosperity, solidarity, security and external influence headings, the content of which remains arbitrary.
One may recall at this point, Commissioner, our struggle to obtain, at the time of the financial perspective, a EUR 100 million boost for the protection of the environment, which the Commission immediately halved. Whereas it was so difficult to obtain funds for the environmental programme, I note how easy it was to release additional resources to fund the Frontex agency as an instrument for combating illegal immigration.
These budget signals illustrate the extent to which our flexibility is limited by the financial perspective and demonstrate, once again, that the environment budget is being whittled away. Despite the urgency and importance of the environment for our fellow citizens, this is a cruelly limited budget for tackling the challenges of the fight against climate change and the erosion of biodiversity. Let us not forget that the Natura 2000 network should receive EUR 6 billion each year in order to function properly.
Despite these shortcomings, I should like to express my interest in the new European Commission initiatives under the ‘external influence’ heading. The fund for renewable energy and energy efficiency and the global alliance on climate change must help the ACP countries, and Africa in particular, to embark on a form of development that integrates the environmental pillar and the social pillar more boldly than we have done, and thus to promote the concept of sustainable development.
Turning to a different subject, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance is looking forward to the Commission report on medium-term staffing requirements. Commissioner, our group has always been in favour of having a satisfactory and steady supply of human resources. In the case of the executive agencies, we need to examine on a case-by-case basis whether programmes are carried out better with an executive agency, or whether we need to keep a centralised approach, as the European Parliament has demanded for LIFE+."@en1
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