Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-12-15-Speech-2-013"
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"en.20091215.7.2-013"2
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"Thank you for the floor, Mr President. Minister, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, right at the start of this budget debate, I must say that I would like not so much to cause an argument as to express my thanks. I wish to thank the Council and Commission for the fruitful cooperation which has enabled us finally to reach an agreement and now table, in a sense, a joint proposal before this House. However, I must also extend this expression of thanks to the various groups in the House, because had these groups not been able to cooperate and jointly represent the values which are important to Parliament and Europe’s citizens, it would not have been possible at all to prepare the budget.
I was entrusted a year ago with the task of being the rapporteur for the 2010 budget. We got started immediately on formulating Parliament’s political expectations and directives. These matters were discussed by Parliament in the spring of this year. It was extremely important, looking ahead to the future as well, that a decision was made from which lessons could be drawn, because we preceded the preliminary draft budget by several months. In other words, the EU Commission was aware of Parliament’s opinion and more or less took this into consideration as well when preparing the preliminary budget.
I think that we should also adopt the same timing in subsequent years. What did we want to achieve? We knew that Europe’s economy was in crisis. We felt and still do now that this budget must play an instrumental role in the management of the crisis. We discussed this point with the Council because another obvious solution to the crisis is for us to spend less on Europe. It is not a solution, but it may help the situation. If we spend the money wisely here and place huge emphasis on the good use of resources, the EU budget may then appear not as a burden but as part of the solution to the crisis. In light of this, we wanted to boost competitiveness, using research and development programmes as one means of doing this. We also wanted to lay the foundations for and contribute to a common energy policy.
More than EUR 11 billion are being allocated for these purposes. We wanted to boost the economy, mainly via the cohesion policy. This facility is worth EUR 36 billion. It became clear over the course of the year that there were serious problems in the dairy sector, for instance, which were not a consequence of the general economic crisis. However, Parliament felt it necessary to stand up for the farmers, which resulted in the creation of a EUR 300 million dairy fund which, although not a permanent fund, still represents a EUR 300 million increase. With total funds of some EUR 750 million available, more assistance can be given to the dairy sector. However, Parliament would also now like to stress that this must be accompanied by a complete review of the dairy sector’s problems and its restructuring.
At the same time, we also had to face the fact that we had insufficient room for manoeuvre. Some headings have no margin, which makes a mid-term review of the multiannual financial framework inevitable. There is a huge need for this, but there is also a huge need for Member States to use the funds which they have available in a much more targeted and prudent way in order to encourage growth. Only then will we be able to look Europe’s citizens and taxpayers straight in the eye, as it is their money we are spending in an attempt to make the EU operate more efficiently and successfully."@en1
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