Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-04-Speech-2-163"
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"en.20070904.21.2-163"2
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"Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the European Parliament has now to deliberate upon the Council’s proposal for next year’s budget. Right at the start I wish to thank the country holding the presidency, Portugal, for its excellent and transparent cooperation. It has worked splendidly in collaboration with the European Parliament and its Committee on Budgets, in particular. The debate has gone extremely smoothly. Although the Council’s proposal gives cause for comment, the work of the Presidency gives us good reason to assume that we will achieve an excellent end result.
The Council’s budget proposal is a frugal one. Compared to the preliminary draft budget, commitment appropriations have been cut by EUR 717 million, with the margin for the multiannual financial framework at EUR 3.9 billion. Payment appropriations have come in for an even bigger cut, having been reduced by EUR 2.1 billion, meaning they are a good EUR 10.3 billion under the financial framework, which is to say just 95% of the EU’s GNI. When we recall how, after long and hard talks, the financial framework was adopted only a year ago, we have to regard the level of payment appropriations, and these especially, as unrealistically low.
It is regrettable that budget headings 1a (competitiveness for growth and employment) and 1b (cohesion for growth and employment) should have been made the target of particularly drastic cuts. In the first case payment appropriations have been reduced by more than EUR 500 million and in the second by EUR 498 million. Both of these headings concern a key priority of the European Union, the Lisbon Strategy, one now made weaker by a cut of more than a billion euros.
There are also fundamental problems for the budget in connection with heading 1. Last year the European Parliament warned the Council that financing for the European Galileo navigation system was too inadequate. Now there is a shortfall of EUR 2.4 billion, because the private sector did not get involved. Under its resolution, the European Parliament is supporting a project using Community funds coming out of the Union’s budget. This is the simplest procedure, the least bureaucratic and the most democratic. Such a huge sum of money, EUR 400 million a year, is nevertheless impossible to find, given the current financial framework, and so we need a joint decision by Parliament and the Council. We can rescue this important European project, but it will have to be done in the context of this budget procedure.
Another problem is the European Institute of Technology, the EIT. If we do want to set it up it will have to be financed sustainably. It cannot be based on hopes and assumptions, but needs realistic decisions. The idea that the EIT would almost certainly receive cash out of EU programmes based on free competition is just a dream. What if it were to come true, though? That is why we need realistic solutions.
There is a special problem concerning next year’s budget, and that relates to the Structural Funds, the Cohesion Fund and rural development funds. Only a few of the Structural Funds’ Operational Programmes have been approved. Just 20% of the 335 Programmes under the European Regional Development Fund and Cohesion Fund have been approved, but the figure for the European Social Fund is just less than 10%. Most worrying is the situation concerning the Rural Development Fund, where just two of the 96 Programmes have been approved. In June the European Parliament and the Council adopted a declaration which focuses attention on this, and they promised to monitor the Commission’s actions here. Parliament for its own part promises to enforce this declaration.
Finally, I want to emphasise the importance of good management. The European Parliament wants to promote activity-based management and budgeting. We, together with the Council, passed a declaration which stresses the importance of a cost-benefit analysis and accountability when new agencies are being set up. We need to insist on this.
The theme of next year’s budget is the Budget for Results. The purpose is to emphasise the notion that it is the appropriations that need to be used to achieve the desired results. Management is not the main issue here: it is results. I firmly believe that we, along with the Council and the Commission, will succeed in establishing such a budget for next year."@en1
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