Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-11-21-Speech-3-299-000"
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"en.20121121.23.3-299-000"2
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"Ladies and gentlemen, last Tuesday at midnight, the 21-day deadline for budget conciliation pursuant to Article 314 of the Treaty expired. The delegations of the Council and Parliament were unable to reach agreement on a draft text. This means that the budgetary procedure for the 2013 budget, based on the Commission draft, has temporarily broken down. As provided for in the Treaty for such contingencies, the Commission must now present a new draft. It has already announced that it will submit a new proposal on Friday this week, i.e. on 23 November, in the hope that the Council and Parliament, as equal parts of the budgetary authority, will be able to reach a compromise which would enable a regular budget for 2013 to come into effect on 1 January 2013.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is not the sound financial management that we are obliged to uphold under the budget regulations. It is quite clear that the 2013 budget must be sufficient to meet all the payment obligations for next year. Any remaining liabilities from 2012, for example relating to October and November of the current year, must be met from additional budget resources.
The European Parliament will continue to fight for its priorities, namely growth, competitiveness and employment. Here, the Commission’s draft, including commitment appropriations in category 1a, for example, undoubtedly need to be improved.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are prepared to work constructively and earnestly with the Council to achieve a quick solution to unresolved issues. We want a 2013 budget. We are willing and open to negotiations and we are confident that after the presentation of the Commission’s new draft budget, as soon as the procedure has restarted, the Council will also recognise that we have to pay the bills.
I should like to end on a positive note. At Parliament’s insistence – and I myself worked intensively on this issue and would like to thank everyone involved, particularly Mr Lamassoure, but also Mr La Via and Ms Balzani; we all worked hard here – we were at least able to convince the Member States that the fifth amending budget for 2012 should be adopted swiftly, with assistance amounting to EUR 670 million being mobilised from the Solidarity Fund for the victims of the earthquake in Italy.
With the vote on the amending budget at noon today, we signalled our active solidarity with one of our Member States and its citizens. Minister Mavroyiannis and I signed this amending budget a few moments ago, so that these funds can now be made available to the people who are most affected in the communities worst affected in Emilia-Romagna. This is genuine solidarity. Let us hope that the other budget issues can be brought to a positive conclusion so that during the December part-session, we can vote on an adequate sixth amending budget for 2012 as well as a solid budget for 2013.
One final comment, ladies and gentlemen: this budgetary procedure was new territory for me, at least in my capacity as President of the House. It has been a steep learning curve. The main lesson I have learned is this: there is a stark contrast between the term ‘the Council’ and the reality of its members. ‘The Council’ is not Mr Mavroyiannis, nor is it all the Member States. However, in the Council, there are some Member States that are not willing to honour their pledges and Member States that are willing to lead us into budget deficit. In other words, they are demanding that we adopt the same reckless approach that they have applied for far too long and far too often to their national budgets. I am pleased to say that our budget experts in this House – and, I believe, the vast majority of Members as well – are not willing to go along with that.
Let me make it clear that the European Parliament is of course mindful of its responsibility in the budgetary procedure and, like the European Commission, is seeking to reach an agreement. We are aware that if no agreement is reached, a system of provisional twelfths will be put in place until an agreement can be reached. This is a viable way forward for the next budget year, but it is certainly not an ideal solution. Nonetheless, Parliament cannot give its approval to an agreement that is achieved at any price.
With our budget, we are at a crossroads. Over the past two years, we trusted the assurances given by the Member States and accepted these assurances on the Council’s positions on payments, which were in all cases far below the Commission draft for the budget year in question. We did so in recognition of the difficult budgetary situation in some of our Member States. It was clear to all the institutions that the Union could not manage, and cannot manage, this assumed level of payments.
That is why the Council and Parliament, at the end of the budget negotiations in each of the past two years, have formally declared that all the payments that could not be made from the adopted budget would be dealt with under an amending budget, and that this would happen quickly and in a straightforward manner. In a joint statement, both parts of the budgetary authority – Parliament and Council – announced that they wished to proceed in this manner. I would like to read part of the statement to you. I quote the English version of the text:
Taking into account the ongoing fiscal consolidation efforts in Member States, the Council and the European Parliament agree on a reduction of the level of payment appropriations for 2012 as compared to the Commission’s draft budget. They ask the Commission to request additional payment appropriations in an amending budget if the appropriations entered in the 2012 budget are insufficient. The Council and the European Parliament will take position on any draft amending budget as quickly as possible in order to avoid any shortfall in payment appropriations.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a statement by Members of Parliament who have lost touch with reality. This is a statement by the Member States of the European Union. This is our position now. The Commission has accumulated various unpaid accounts for the 2012 budget year. They relate to cohesion, the Social Fund, research, and Erasmus. They are accounts that need to be paid, amounting to EUR 9 billion. Let me say again that the funding requirement to cover these additional payments for 2012 – and, I might add, these only go up to 31 October – is not based on estimates or assumptions but on legally binding commitments which the Commission must fulfil. Before we can hold serious negotiations about the budget for 2013, the 2012 budget year must be signed off as correct.
As it is not yet certain how many unpaid accounts will still be on the table on 31 December 2012, it is impossible to make a serious decision about the budgetary requirement for 2013. The Member States failed to produce credible assurances by the end of the conciliation period that they are willing to abide by the statement they made in November 2011 on the 2012 budget and cover the EUR 9 billion shortfall.
Unlike traditional budget negotiations, however, there is no scope for concessions here. If I have accounts to pay, amounting in this instance to EUR 9 billion, I cannot make a maximum offer of EUR 2, 3 or 4 billion instead. However, that is the approach that was taken by the Member States until Tuesday evening. It was not possible to reach an agreement with Parliament on that basis, for what the Member States were demanding was nothing less than a budget deficit.
However, this House is not prepared to adopt this approach at the European level, even if some Member States customarily apply it to their national budgets. It is not a viable way forward. If we do not solve the problems for 2012 and carry too many unpaid accounts forward to 2013 – and, I might add, these would then also attract interest for late payment – we will face intractable problems in 2013."@en1
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