Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-16-Speech-2-049"
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"en.19991116.4.2-049"2
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"Mr President, I could limit my intervention to simply presenting the supplementary and amending budget SAB 5 and explaining my recommendation to vote in this Parliament.
Lastly, of the three instruments, it is SAB 5 which we are examining today with an additional EUR 202 million in payment appropriations for external actions and these 15 additional posts for OLAF. And the Commission proposal states – and the rapporteur is very happy about this – that they will be entirely funded by the EAGGF-Guarantee, since there are appropriations there which will not be used.
I would ask Parliament to approve the resolution which is short and concise. It takes note of SAB 5 and indicates once again that the forecasts for agricultural expenditure have been excessive. It is also indicated in this resolution – and this is perhaps the most important point, section 4 – that it asks Parliament to approve the decision to increase the amount of supplementary and amending budget 5/99 by EUR 25 million in payment appropriations intended for the PHARE programme, in accordance, Mrs Schreyer, with the urgent needs of this programme which the Commission has indicated.
Lastly, I also want to appeal to the Council. I would like to ask the Council to approve without amendments this SAB 5, amended by Parliament, so that the payments are not subject to further delays.
But, Mr President, we have to understand that SAB 5 cannot be seen in isolation, but that it forms a whole with SAB 4 and what we call the global transfer and the Notenboom procedure. Allow me, then, to begin with some thoughts which are directed at the Commission.
On presenting the SAB 4 and in the tripartite dialogue, on the 7th, before the adoption of that SAB 4, the Commission announced that the supplementary and necessary payment appropriations – EUR 650.5 million in particular for PHARE, TACIS, Obnova and FYROM – were covered, or were going to be covered, by means of three instruments: SAB 4, the global transfer and SAB 5, which today is the object of our debate and resolution. And SAB 5 would also serve to increase the posts in OLAF from 15 to 30, as the supervisory committee recommended in its report on this body, so that OLAF may begin to work in accordance with the priorities which had already been identified.
On 15 September, Parliament discussed SAB 4 and it was then approved, both by Parliament and by the Council, in the vote in plenum. Today SAB 5 is also being debated. But with regard to the global transfer, which is one of the three instruments, and which the Commission had presented to increase the payment appropriations, part of this whole does not pass through this procedure in the Plenum. It passes a little more unnoticed through the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
But you will allow me, since this is part of the whole, to make some observations and take this opportunity to quote directly the small gems of arguments which the Commission uses to transfer payments between the different lines and transfer them towards external actions.
I shall begin with a curious issue, which is the reduction in the line which is called “European Union Celebrations for the Millennium”. The Commission’s justification for removing all the payments from there is: “The planned activities are not taking place.”
Next I have three lines, “Special actions for the benefit of the Baltic region”, “Integrating gender issues into development cooperation” and “Preparatory actions by the NGOs in the campaign against child abuse”. In these cases the Commission says: “No decision has yet been taken”. We are in the middle of November. It will be done, but we will see that as a result of taking decisions so late, especially in preparatory actions, which is what all these lines are, and they are priorities of this Parliament, payments may be removed on the grounds that decisions have not been taken.
I would like to ask, firstly: Who decides that it will not be done? (given that the political priorities, in my understanding, are set by Parliament). And secondly: what is the reason for this delay in the taking of decisions? I would recommend an improvement in 2000.
I do not want to be firmer with you, but I believe it is important, given that we said the 1999 budget was a bridge, not only with regard to funding, but also in the setting down of the political priorities for the new Millennium."@en1
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