Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-16-Speech-2-034"
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"en.19991116.2.2-034"2
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"Mr President, Mrs Haug, ladies and gentlemen, it goes without saying that the revenue side of the budget is as important as the expenditure side of the European Commission’s budget, albeit we do not have an annual debate on the latter. At the Berlin Summit, changes to the revenue side were agreed on in respect of the maximum proportion of VAT paid to the EU, the British contribution rebate and the financing thereof, and with regard to the proportion of customs duties and agricultural levies that can be retained by the Member States.
The Commission considers that we are justified in raising this amount to 25%. However, I would also like to make quite plain the fact that in return, I would expect the Member States to step up the measures for supervising the own resources as appropriate and to stop trying to talk their way out of this, so that these supervisory measures really do start showing favourable results. A decision was also reached as to when the Commission is to review the current financing system and report on the possibility of raising autonomous own resources.
I welcome the fact that Parliament has again had such an in-depth debate on the financing structure and I personally welcome still more the fact that I have been able to discern a great deal of common ground between my own basic position and the positions expressed today in the contributions to the debate.
In October 1998, the Commission presented a report on the revenue side of the budget and possibilities for reform. Many arguments put forward in this report are the same as those ventured by Parliament in its earlier Haug I report and in the Haug II report that we have here before us. All deliberations on reform ought to concentrate, above all, on making the revenue side transparent, effective and simple. There is no longer transparency in the current system on account of the copious individual provisions relating to the VAT rate of collection, the British rebate and the financing thereof. The citizens are no longer able to tell what proportion of their taxes is spent on the European Union. This lack of transparency is a bad thing and as such is reason enough, in my view, for us to endeavour to make reforms.
I share the view – as I emphasised during my hearing before this Parliament back in September – that it should be our aim in reforming the financing system to strengthen the financial autonomy of the Community. We need to create the opportunity to establish revenue without – and I want to stress this point – increasing the overall burden on the taxpayer. I also share the view that an equitable approach to planning the budget is not something that should be reserved for the revenue side alone, and I share the view that we should not wait until the year 2006 to have a debate on reform, but rather that the debate, together with its administrative back-up, should take place in this legislative period."@en1
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