Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-14-Speech-2-204"
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"en.19991214.9.2-204"2
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"Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner. Like Mrs Buitenweg, I too am new to the budgetary procedure but, like everyone else, I know that any budget is, by definition, the expression of political will. Having seen the final propositions notified to us at the end of weeks of laborious negotiations between Parliament and the Council, I greatly fear that our political will appears, to say the least, blurred and wavering, especially as far as external action is concerned, which is the main bone of contention.
There is a marked gap between the Union’s loud proclamations of its ambition to play a more active role in the settlement of major international problems and the haggling which we are forced to engage in with government representatives when it comes to finding money to fund the new priorities.
My group voted at first reading against any reduction in the appropriations allocated to old but still equally important priorities, especially appropriations allocated to cooperation with and the development of southern countries, in order to fund new expenditure. Robbing Peter to pay Paul has never been an indication of great political imagination.
We therefore voted in favour of a reasonable review of the financial perspectives over several years and the proposal made by our general rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, went in the right direction, calling for a reasonable review of heading 4. My group therefore supported his strategy to make the Council face up to its responsibilities: either we were to obtain the funding which would allow us to honour our political commitments or we would have recourse to Article 272 of the Treaty, which authorises us to determine non-compulsory expenditure ourselves, albeit within strict limits.
Having made one concession after another, we are now back at square one and, in the name of the cast iron logic of the budgetary stability pact, we now have the following situation: firstly, estimates and financial requirements for the reconstruction of Kosovo which have mysteriously dropped from EUR 500 million – the figure put forward by the Commission, the World Bank, the Member States and the media – to 420 and then to some 300 million; secondly, a reduction in the appropriations which we voted for East Timor and for the victims of the earthquakes in Turkey; thirdly, cuts in appropriations for cooperation, food aid and aid to Palestine and the countries of the southern Mediterranean, the TACIS programme for eastern Europe and support for human rights and, lastly, cuts totalling some EUR 2 billion in payment appropriations.
The result is, without doubt, an improvement on the Council’s initial position but, even so, what would our responsibility be if we were to accept such a compromise? Let me quote just one example: tomorrow we are going to honour Mr Gusmão the head of the resistance of the people of East Timor. Shall we, at the same time, tell him that we agree to reduce reconstruction aid for his country by one third? That is why, Mr President, my group feels that this compromise is unacceptable and we are unable to back it."@en1
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