Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-26-Speech-2-027"
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"en.19991026.2.2-027"2
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". – Mr President, this is the third occasion I have been asked to be draftsman for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport. It is not an easy job, there is never enough money, but it is one I would rather do than be the general budget rapporteur. I would like to add my thanks to those already expressed to Mr Bourlanges for the support he has shown to the Culture Committee.
Culture has not come out of the budget process as well as it wished, but we are doing rather better than the Council of Ministers’ proposal and have figures close to the 1999 level.
Our main education programme, Socrates, and the programmes of Youth and Culture have been mauled by the Council of Ministers. I would say that the EUR 238 million proposed for Socrates is simply not enough to do a sensible job. Last week I met the Committee of British University Vice-Chancellors. They told me that no-one – student or university – gets involved in Socrates because of the money. They do it because they believe in Europe and they want to make the single market work. But we have to ask ourselves, are the figures now so low as to make the objectives unrealistic? Let us hope that the conciliation procedure taking place tomorrow will recognise the need to give a higher priority to Europe’s students and increase the funding.
The total for our share of the budget is approximately EUR 600 million, a lot of money until you divide it by 370 million people – less than 1% of our budget, not a bottomless pit. In the year 2000, the EU will spend less than EUR 2 per citizen on education, encouraging young people to participate in exchange programmes or to acquire knowledge of different languages and cultures, on informing its citizens about the future developments of the Union while supporting our audio-visual industry. Of this scant EUR 2 support for Europe’s cultural heritage will be less than 20 cents. The call for the millennium must be EUR 1 per head on Europe’s culture.
What we are currently engaged in is tokenism and symbolic expenditure only. Even there we manage to get it wrong. I do not criticise individual staff, but I receive too many complaints from prestigious organisations like the European Youth Orchestra, the European Youth Parliament, the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation – renowned organisations doing a wonderful job for Europe and our young people. Not one of those organisations covered by budget lines 3021 or B3-2005 has received a single euro yet in 1999 for their budgets. Can we make the millennium the year when our systems work. Mr Prodi, Mrs Reding and Mrs Schreyer, we are relying on you to do it better this coming year.
I will finish by telling you a story. I live in a small village in Hampshire with a population of 2 500 people. My wife is the chairman of the parish council. I asked her what she spends on cultural, sports and social activities for the village. They spend EUR 50 000, or EUR 20 per head. So if anybody comes to me for European support, I tell them they are much more likely to get realistic support from their village council than they are from the EU."@en1
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"Perry (PPE ),"1
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