Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-07-07-Speech-1-091"
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"en.20080707.16.1-091"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, the budget is a political instrument, not an accounting instrument, and this report has the great advantage, I believe, of going beyond technicalities and making some political points.
The two most important points are, firstly, that the EU budget is not equal to the EU’s needs and ambitions and, secondly, that this budget does not reflect the EU’s political priorities as specifically mapped out by its other agencies.
On the first point, what can we do? What does the report say? We are asking for an increase in the very low level of payment appropriations. In addition – and this is very important; it has been said, but I want to repeat it – we are asking for the best possible use of the margins. In other words, wherever we can avoid wasting money under certain policies to enable that money to be used for EU policies, it is very important that we should do so.
On the second point, we can see that the budget, as I said, does not reflect the political priorities. I shall focus on two examples. These have been mentioned by other Members, but I shall repeat them:
Over the past political year, what have we found to be the most pressing problem currently facing the EU? Energy policy, climate change, the food supply problem. The sums allocated from the budget to combat this whole raft of political problems are very low.
The second issue, as many have said, is external policy. Now that Europe is opening up and spreading its wings, we are once again reducing expenditure.
Thirdly, and let me insist on this: communications policy. You see what is happening, the problem the EU is facing in terms of the institutional crisis it is going through. We need political initiatives, and for those political initiatives we need communications and money."@en1
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