Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-11-23-Speech-2-406"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20101123.37.2-406"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, I think that the crisis in which we currently find ourselves was triggered by events in Deauville. I believe that the President of France and the Chancellor of Germany made a deal with David Cameron in Deauville which involved his agreement to the revision of the treaty for the Stability and Growth Pact in return for the United Kingdom’s budget demands being met. I may be wrong, but the suspicion is there. This would be a deal made at the expense of third parties, in other words, at the expense of the rights of the European Parliament. Therefore, it should be no surprise that the third party, in this case this House, is not prepared to go along with this.
Incidentally, it should also be no surprise that the fate of Europe is being left in the hands of eurosceptic governments. In this sort of situation, a government of this kind will test out how far it can go. The British Government is currently testing out whether the rest of Europe will accept its prerogatives or not. Therefore, this budget or budget debate is also a debate about the direction in which the European Union should develop. It is not about money. We have agreed on the money. I believe that this is an important message for the voters and the citizens of Europe. We have come to an agreement on the money and, as a Parliament, we have met the demands of the United Kingdom with regard to the money: a 2.91% increase in spending, not the commitment appropriations, but the expenditure.
If not money, then what is it all about? It is about the rights of the European Parliament. It is about the rights which are laid down in the treaty. Everything that Parliament is calling for forms part of the treaty. The subject of own resources is covered in Article 311 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. Medium-term financial planning is a procedure established in the treaty, for which a regulation must be enacted. Flexibility in the budget involves the mutual interest of governments, the Commission and Parliament and their ability, within the framework of budgetary rules, to respond flexibly to short-term requirements. It is not about additional spending; it is about how efficiently Europe is governed, at least that is the case with flexibility, and it is about the primary rights of Parliament.
I am rather surprised. The Heads of Government of the European Union are all parliamentarians. They are all men and women who have grown up in the parliamentary tradition. As Mr Daul has already said, which national parliament would allow its central right, the right to draw up a budget, to be interfered with by the will of the executive? The 27 governments of the European Union are executives. However, we must not allow democracy in Europe to be turned upside down. Parliament enacts the budget and Parliament controls the executive. The wish of the British Government in this case is for the 27 governments to control the Parliament, which is the opposite of parliamentary democracy. Therefore, this decision could set a precedent. Parliament must not allow its rights to be taken away.
What happens next? After European taxpayers’ money has been transferred to Brussels from the coffers of the Member States, it no longer belongs to the Member States. It is the EU’s money. It must then be controlled by Parliament within the Union. After this, the budget must be adopted by Parliament, because the European budget is not adopted by 27 national parliaments or by 27 national governments, but by a freely elected Parliament, in other words, this House.
Medium-term financial planning, the flexibility clause and the own resources are the three elements which we need to discuss with the Council, not the money. We have talked about this over the last few hours. I would like to make it very clear once again that Mr Lamassoure and the chairs of the groups have made a great effort to enable us to take what is, in my opinion, a relatively consistent line. However, we must not now give up this line. We must make it clear to the Council that these three elements concern our rights and not additional spending. Any Parliament which allows its rights to be curtailed by a government of any kind should cease to function.
Therefore, my group has unanimously decided that either we will agree on these demands, which are nothing more than an attempt to reinforce Parliament’s rights, or there will be no budget. If there is no budget, there will be no ITER project, no nuclear fusion reactor. There will be no Galileo project and there will be no European External Action Service.
The Heads of Government have the choice. They can either recognise the rights of Parliament and its projects or they can humiliate Parliament, in which case there will be no budget. That is the unanimous line taken by my group."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples