Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-06-15-Speech-2-516"
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"Madam President, I would like to respond to some of the speeches; not all of them, because there have been a great many, but I would like to respond to some of them briefly.
With regard to Mr van der Stoep, I would like to say that we are going to propose that the possibility of flexibility in the Financial Framework Regulation be looked at.
To Mr Cozzolino, I would like to say that my position is the same as I expressed before, i.e. that in the current mindset, it will be difficult for the Member States, who are making a huge effort to reduce the deficit, to put more resources in the European Union budget.
I would like to say to Mr Ehrenhauser that we are going to prioritise and redistribute heading 5 as far as possible and reduce its size or allocation, provided that this does not negatively affect control or intelligent and efficient allocation of expenditure. This measure is therefore part of the general move towards flexibility and prioritisation that I was talking about before.
I must say to Mr Fernandes that under no circumstances are we considering postponing the Multiannual Financial Framework. On the contrary, things are progressing normally and the new financial framework will be adopted at the appropriate time.
I say the same to Mrs McGuinness: it is not possible to allocate more resources at the moment, given the shortages, the worsening of the economic situation and the difficulties that many countries are experiencing, and what we therefore need to do is try to find a way to use those resources better.
I would also like to say, in response to another speaker, that the EU budget has been adapted in order to respond to the crisis and has not been stagnant in the face of this new situation that has arisen in the last two years, and it has also responded to the social challenges that have arisen. This is what happened, for example, with the European Economic Recovery Plan.
In addition, and finally, I will pass on the remainder of the comments from Members to the Council and would like to thank them personally and also on behalf of the Council for their speeches.
To Mr Lewandowski in particular: I would like to express my agreement with his concern that at this time of economic uncertainty and difficulty, all available resources should be used by the Member States and by the European Union itself to combat unemployment and get out of the crisis as soon as possible.
I would like to say to Mr Marinescu that it was indeed agreed in the Council’s guidelines that strengthening the External Action Service would not result in higher costs. In other words, it should not, under any circumstances, involve greater expenditure and devoting more resources for this purpose, but rather budgetary neutrality would be maintained.
To Mrs Gardiazábal Rubial, I would like to say that the current budgetary framework provides sufficient flexibility mechanisms to cover some of the initiatives that she is proposing, and that the European Union budget is not in deficit, but it is, of course, fed by contributions from the Member States, and especially from the gross national income resource. It is easy to appreciate that more intensive use of this resource would aggravate the individual situations faced by each of the Member States which, as you are all aware, are very delicate at the moment. Using this channel to increase the EU budget would therefore be contradictory in the crisis situation that we are experiencing.
This initial position does not, however, mean that a review cannot be considered if exceptional circumstances exist or arise, as has happened in the past on several occasions, in this planning period. This can, however, only be done if the other financing options have been considered.
I would like to say to Mrs Trüpel that it may indeed be interpreted externally that the Commission is suggesting that the Council is not being accurate about the need or the path that needs to be followed in order to change the financial framework and, in turn, the Council could be asking it for a document to serve as a platform for launching that review. The fact is, however, that we are all immersed in a very complicated macro-economic situation, as I said before, which requires two things: firstly, making it a priority to solve the problems at national level, and secondly, maintaining the EU’s efforts, as they are now in the current financial framework, without any changes until we have a sufficiently documented and agreed study.
I would like to stress to Mr Wlosowicz that I support him in his defence of the cohesion policy. The Council has always defended this policy as an emblem of the European Union and a platform for achieving the convergence targets that the EU has set itself. It should therefore be understood that the Council will always fully support this policy.
I would like to say to Mrs Andreasen that I do indeed agree with her that in the current situation, it is not possible to increase the EU’s resources. Therefore, as I said before in my first speech, we need to use those resources by prioritising and redistributing allocations to make spending increasingly efficient and achieve our objectives in the most intelligent way.
This does not in any way mean that there is a risk of democracy being lost in any of the countries that you mentioned, and I therefore think that we should eliminate even the possibility of a risk of that happening, even if it is very remote."@en1
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