Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-26-Speech-2-041"
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"en.19991026.2.2-041"2
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"Mr President, I should also like first of all to express my appreciation of the sterling work which Mr Bourlanges, Mr Virrankoski and Mr Pittella have done as rapporteurs for the budget.
As a Liberal, I personally have the basic attitude that we should be thrifty when it comes to public expenditure. In fact, I also think we have tried to live up to that basic principle when discussing the budget. I therefore want to emphasise that, when a majority of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party gives its backing to the strategy which the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, has devised and which aims at rejecting the 10% general reduction in external expenditure, this does not reflect an unwillingness on our part to make savings. It is, on the other hand, a rejection of the way in which the Commission and the Council have proposed financing the reconstruction of Kosovo. As has been mentioned many times today, it is unreasonable that poor countries in Africa should in this way finance the reconstruction of Kosovo. All the more so when, with the signing of the interinstitutional agreement in the spring, it was anticipated that there would be a need to find funds specifically for Kosovo and that the reconstruction would be expensive.
It is important that a solution to this problem is found, and it is my hope that, in the negotiations, the Council will show the required flexibility so that we might find a solution within the framework of the interinstitutional agreement. We have started with the assumption that EUR 500 million should be found for the reconstruction of Kosovo. That is the Commission’s figure. But, in the Committee on Budgets, we have also, through a conference among other things, received information to make us question whether that figure has not been set rather too high for the year 2000 and whether we might not be concerned here with a more long-term commitment. This also indicates that a great deal of effort will have to be made to find a solution involving all the various institutions.
As a new member, I have been very pleased, during the Committee on Budgets’ negotiations, to experience the discipline which characterises its work. We have tried to live up to an unwritten rule about avoiding dotting the “i”s and crossing the “t”s too much when it comes to noting specific budget appropriations. These tie down the administration and can lead to far too little flexibility and a lack of accountability if we go too far in that direction. Noting specifically which funds are to be earmarked for which purposes is obviously an important tool for Parliament when preparing a budget. But any tool can become blunt and lose its power if it is not used with care. Despite our attempts at restraint, there are many examples of dotting the “i”s and crossing the “t”s in the budget, including many good examples. I think that in principle, however, it is goals and frameworks we ought to be aiming for to as great an extent as possible. It is our task as politicians to establish goals and set the general frameworks. We need to beware of specifying too much detail.
In this connection, I want vigorously to back up Mr Virrankoski’s proposal that budgets should be prepared and controlled on the basis of activities and in relation to goals, as he has recommended they should be in his report. Clearly, the circumstances of the past year – what with the Commission’s departure and the reports by the Committee of Independent Experts – provide a reminder that we need to secure for ourselves a foundation which can give us confidence that resources are being administered in a reasonable way. There have been good signals from the new Commissioners, and I think we are all looking forward to fruitful cooperation with both Mrs Schreyer and Neil Kinnock, but they must live with the burden of what we have experienced.
This is also the background to why so much money has been placed in reserve. The Technical Assistance Offices, or TAOs, have been established by the Commission as a roundabout way of getting administration into those areas which could not be administered with the given resources. And the Experts’ report shows that the necessary follow-up and supervision was not in place. We need the Commission to provide realistic assessments of the need for administrative resources. This is the background to the situation in which payments into the technical accounts have been placed in a reserve, and there is a need for open dialogue concerning future administration.
As I say, those of us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party attach a lot of importance to a solution being found which all three institutions can live with. The next few years will demand a lot from us. There will continue to be major external tasks to consider. Enlargement of the European Union will necessitate a constant re-ordering of our priorities, and we need to continue tidying things up internally. The prior condition for tackling these things is constructive cooperation between Parliament, the Commission and the Council."@en1
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