Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-01-13-Speech-2-335"
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"Concerning a reality check, I agree fully that any decisions we make, especially strategic ones, need to be very politically responsible. We should not change the best, but we need to get rid of what is old or not very effective.
Concerning the mid-term review, I think there is a misunderstanding. We have never been asked to prepare a mid-term review of the European budget. We have been asked to prepare the full-range budget reform paper by the end of 2009, and it is up to us to decide the timing – where politically it is more proper or where we can have a more efficient and effective response. Personally, I would like it to be prepared earlier – maybe in the spring. But I have to take a serious reality check because we have elections, perhaps the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty etc. We should not waste a good proposal and allow operational events to overshadow it. Let us leave it to President Barroso to decide on the final date, but we are ready and this Commission is ready to do its job.
Mr Paleckis, your questions are really very important, very deep, I might even say so deep and important that not even the whole European budget would provide an answer. In truth your questions are strategic, whereas no budget could react effectively now or in the future to the sort of financial crisis which has occurred.
The European budget represents just 1% of gross domestic product, but the financial crisis was largely caused not because of a lack of money, but perhaps I would say because of supervision issues, the globalisation of the financial system, its monopolisation and many other reasons.
The European budget, like the budget of a very small international organisation, has no doubt a certain selection of instruments, but it really is not large. That selection largely consists not of actual finances or money, but rather regulating measures, control measures, recommendation measures, also including in the field of macroeconomic policy. This is probably even more important than how much money we actually have or can inject.
At the moment we really have the Globalisation Adjustment Fund, we have the flexibility instrument and others, but they are not really efficient or effective. It was precisely for this reason that in our recovery plan the Commission proposed investing those EUR 5 billion in strategic structural changes to energy inter-connections and other energy infrastructure projects and so far countries are in no hurry and are not very willing to discuss this matter.
The crisis itself shows that investing in strategic energy projects and other strategic joint European projects is extremely important. I hope very much that this crisis will be one of those lessons, which Europe should take very seriously. I also hope that it will help to concentrate and in future use the European budget where we can gain most benefit, as it is far too small to cover everything and solve everything.
Therefore, it is not easy to answer your very general questions, but as I mentioned, I hope very much that this crisis situation in the world and the economic recession, which can now been seen throughout Europe, should really help politicians invest more in European strategy."@en1
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