Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-05-06-Speech-3-415"
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"en.20090506.41.3-415"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure for me this evening to present the report on the financial aspects of the Treaty of Lisbon, which has been ready for some time now in the Committee on Budgets. This will be the last budgetary report of this parliamentary term and my last parliamentary report.
Above all, I am very pleased to see that Parliament has had the courage to present our reports in the ‘Lisbon’ package to honour the promise made to the citizens to inform them of the consequences of this treaty. A betterinformed citizen is a citizen who votes in full knowledge of the facts. Speaking about the Treaty of Lisbon in this House is not a denial of democracy, rather the contrary. Its implementation will have major consequences for the budgetary powers of the institutions and financial implications.
The reform is in fact important for Parliament. Apart from the introduction of multiannual financial frameworks, it should be remembered that the budgetary procedure has remained practically unchanged since 1975. It was therefore essential for the Committee on Budgets to analyse these modifications and verify that they were the conditions needed for our institution to maintain, even strengthen, its role as a budgetary authority. That is the whole thrust of this report: simplification and clarification of the budgetary challenges of the Treaty.
My main desire was to defend the prerogatives of the parliamentary institution. Future Members must not be dispossessed of their powers in future budgetary procedures and future negotiations on the multiannual financial framework.
These substantial modifications are of three types. First of all, modifications to the primary legislation. The new budgetary procedure includes real advances and new challenges for Parliament with, firstly, the removal of the distinction between compulsory expenditure and non-compulsory expenditure. Next, the single reading for the budgetary procedure with the introduction of a revert mechanism in the event that the Council rejects the common position, the introduction of a conciliation committee responsible for preparing the common position and a tight timetable for the conciliation committee. In addition, changes are made to the new multiannual financial framework that strengthen Parliament’s role. This framework is becoming restrictive. To be adopted, it requires unanimity in the Council and the consent of the European Parliament. I would add that its adoption is the result of an entirely new and special procedure.
With regard to the new financial perspectives, we want them to have a five-year lifespan to coincide with Parliament’s and the European Commission’s terms of office. The commissioners will thus be more accountable for the budgetary choices that they make. Codecision is extended to the adoption of the Financial Regulation and to its methods of application. Unfortunately, however, the decision on own resources remains with the Council. Parliament is merely consulted, except on the methods of application.
Budgetary discipline, therefore, returns in part to Parliament, which can reject the multiannual financial framework. This is real progress. The challenge for the future Parliament is to know what will be negotiated under the new Financial Regulation procedure, the responsibility for which Parliament shares, and what will fall under the legislation for the new regulation on the Interinstitutional Agreement, which Parliament will have the right merely to reject or accept.
Finally, the Union’s new responsibilities will create new funding requirements. First of all there will be the External Relations package with, in particular, the creation of the European External Action Service and the High Representative Vice-President of the Commission, and, then, the new policies: energy, space and tourism, research, civil defence, administrative cooperation, and sport.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you will have understood, the changes implied by the Treaty of Lisbon are important."@en1
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