Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-05-Speech-2-100"
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"Ladies and gentlemen, today, on behalf of the Council Presidency, it is my honour to present the draft budget of the European Communities, as drawn up by the Council on 20 July.
I would add – and of course this is important in our discussions – that it has been possible to earmark such a significant amount without having to revise the financial perspectives aimed at strengthening category 4, as proposed by the Commission. The Council has also ensured the funding of all the European Union’s other policy priorities.
Without launching into an exhaustive description of the Council’s draft budget, which is in any case the subject of the detailed explanatory statement circulated to you, I would now like to present the Council’s 2001 draft budget decisions in a rather more specific way, that is, by category of expenditure.
First, as regards category 1 of the financial perspectives relating to agricultural expenditure, the draft budget provides for an increase in commitment appropriations of 6.3% in relation to 2000 in order to fund the CAP reform agreed by the European Council in Berlin in March 1999. Nevertheless, for sub-category 1a of the financial perspectives, covering CAP market expenditure, the Council decided on figures some EUR 330 million lower in total than those proposed by the Commission in its preliminary draft.
In fact, there is under-implementation of these appropriations every year. The Council therefore felt that it could achieve a reduction by targeting some traditionally underspent budget lines. By doing so, it is also demonstrating the will to make special efforts to achieve significant savings in the compulsory expenditure and not just in non-compulsory expenditure. The savings made, in comparison with the Commission’s preliminary draft budget, do not prevent the Council providing for an increase, which also responds to Parliament’s concerns, in two budgetary lines: for the distribution of milk to schoolchildren, which I know has been the subject of massive correspondence for more than a year now, and promotion of product quality.
For expenditure related to rural development, taking account of the delays which have built up in the approval and implementation of national rural development plans, the Council felt that a margin of EUR 225 million, under the ceiling of sub-category 1b of the financial perspectives, could be earmarked. The development of these appropriations, however, shows an increase of 4.6% compared with 2000, an increase which reflects the priority the Council accords the appropriations allocated to what now constitutes a second pillar of the CAP.
So the draft budget drawn up by the Council includes margins available under the ceilings of sub-categories 1a and 1b of the financial perspectives. However, I want to specify that the Council is, of course, prepared to re-examine agricultural expenditure this autumn in the light of the content of the letter of amendment the Commission will be presenting and to reconsider, at that time, developments in market and rural development expenditure.
As regards structural actions, covered by category 2 of the financial perspectives, the Council has budgeted this whole category as commitment appropriations in line with the conclusions of the Berlin European Council of March 1999 and, in addition, it has renewed all the payment appropriations entered in 2000. But it hoped to increase the Cohesion Fund allocations by some EUR 360 million over provision in the Commission’s preliminary draft, to take account of the forecasts for implementation of these credits in the Member States.
On category 3 of the financial perspectives relating to the funding of internal policies, the Council was primarily intent on ensuring the appropriate funding for the multiannual programmes while respecting, where applicable, the programming decided jointly with Parliament. That is why it has accepted the amounts requested by the Commission in its preliminary draft budget for the framework programme for research and development as well as for the trans-European networks. It has done the same with regard to the appropriations requested to improve the financial environment of SMEs and the start up of the LIFE 3 programme. The Council believes the right amount has been identified to get the LIFE 3 programme off to a good start.
As regards the extension of the ‘Employment’ initiative, agreed by Parliament to strengthen the employment dynamic begun by the Amsterdam European Council, the conciliation meeting between the European Parliament and the Council held on 20 July demonstrated that this subject represents a priority for both our institutions for the 2001 budget, especially in terms of building on the conclusions of the Feira European Council. However, the Council is waiting for the assessment of the previous initiative soon to be delivered by the Commission with a view to seeking agreement with Parliament about its funding in the context of a global agreement during the second reading.
Furthermore, it has identified a precautionary margin of EUR 208 million more than the one in the Commission’s preliminary draft budget, the objective being to have enough room for manoeuvre over and above a necessary margin under the ceiling of category 3 to deal with the new priorities shared by the Council and by Parliament, such as the ‘employment’ initiative I mentioned earlier.
As you know, my colleague Florence Parly chaired that Council, but unfortunately she cannot be here today, so please accept her apologies.
I now come to the financing of the European Union external actions covered by category 4 of the financial perspectives. I do not need to remind you, after the debate we had just now, of the high priority the Council accords to aid to the Western Balkans. Here, as I have already indicated, the draft budget provides for an increase of 30% in comparison with 2000. The EUR 614 million adopted by the Council will be enough to finance all the foreseeable needs. This figure is based on the only evaluation of needs currently available, set out in the 1999 World Bank report on rebuilding Kosovo.
Wishing to be pragmatic, the Council is renewing but not increasing the appropriations intended for Serbia, as it is not yet eligible for Community assistance beyond the aid for democracy and civil society included in this envelope. In general, the Council would like to see the implementation of effective and credible intervention in the region, based on an analysis of needs, adaptation of levels and types of aid to the nature of those needs, and distribution of effort between all the bilateral and multilateral donors.
As regards the other budget titles, although the Council has maintained the major allocations, for a limited number of budgetary lines it has not retained all the appropriations the Commission asked for in its preliminary draft budget. I am thinking in particular of the TACIS programme, the funding of KEDO, the international fisheries agreements, the rapid reaction arrangements and the MEDA programme. On the other hand, the Council has kept to the Commission’s preliminary draft for the vast majority of the other cooperation programmes.
However I want to emphasise, as regards the MEDA programme, that the draft budget provides for an amount of EUR 701 million which is higher than the annual average allocation over the period 1995-1999. The reduction of EUR 150 million made by the Council in comparison with what the Commission is asking for, takes account of the stock of still unpaid commitments still on this programme, and that represents several years of implementation. I take this opportunity to remind you of the Council’s determination to contribute to better management of the programme, an indispensable prior condition, in our view, to enhancing our efforts.
Despite this reduction – motivated by the need to reabsorb the outstanding balance – the MEDA programme naturally remains very important to the Council. The French Presidency’s objective is to achieve the adoption of the new multiannual regulation for MEDA soon and it will in particular be listening to the European Parliament on this subject. I would also like to reaffirm the Council’s commitment to the accession process for Cyprus and Malta, and here I want to congratulate Mr Morillon on the conclusions of his report, which he outlined earlier. We look forward to reading the report with interest, not to say impatience. Consequently we have followed the Commission by grouping the appropriations asked for together under the heading of ‘pre-accession strategy’. However we have not followed up the Commission’s proposal for a revision of the financial perspectives, transferring these appropriations to category 7, and we have kept them in category 4.
Finally, I want to express my satisfaction that agreement was reached at the conciliation meeting between the European Parliament and the Council on 20 July on the amount of the appropriations to be included for the CFSP, as well as the transfer of the administrative expenses for CFSP special representatives, to the Council’s budget, in accordance with the institutional agreement of 1999. This agreement has given rise to the drafting of two joint declarations, one of which specifies that the sums included in the Council’s budget under the heading of CFSP administrative expenses should take account of their impact on the general position for category 5, while the other commits the Council to ensuring that the estimates for administrative costs anticipated for each new CFSP decision are transmitted in good time to the other branch of the budgetary authority.
As you can appreciate, the Council has therefore tried to fund the various priorities in the field of European Union external actions appropriately and in doing so it has earmarked a margin of EUR 184 million under the ceiling of category 4 of the financial perspectives. In drawing up its draft budget for the administrative expenditure covered by category 5 of the financial perspectives, the Council has been concerned to stabilise current expenditure, while taking account of the exceptional needs of the institutions, especially as regards staff for the Anti-fraud Office and the Court of Justice. As regards the Commission’s budget, the Council did not make any decision in July, as it was awaiting the letter of amendment from the Commission which has just been presented, so the Council will now be examining that proposal and applying the lessons from the reorganisation work headed up by Neil Kinnock. The Council is ready to do whatever is necessary to examine this letter of amendment so that its incidence can be taken into account as from first reading by the European Parliament. To that end, there is a margin of EUR 113 million under the ceiling of category 5 of the financial perspectives.
I wish to conclude this overview of the various categories of expenditure with the expenditure on pre-accession aid. For these the Council has kept the Commission’s figure for commitment appropriations. For payment appropriations, the Council has adjusted the Commission’s preliminary draft budget figure downward by EUR 300 million. In line with the logic prevailing for the other categories, the Council has taken maximum account of the substantial underspend of these appropriations in 2000. Despite this reduction compared with the Commission’s preliminary draft, the pre-accession payment appropriations recorded a strong increase of 10.8% compared with 2000, which again reflects the importance accorded this expenditure as absolutely vital to the proper preparation of our major political aim, the enlargement, a priority shared by the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission. Naturally, I wish to take this opportunity to say that I am sure the discussion between Mr Verheugen and the European Parliament, tomorrow, will make it possible to eliminate a number of misunderstandings. I know Günther Verheugen well, I know how committed he is to enlargement and how hard he is working for its success.
Before I end, I would like to take this opportunity to say how pleased I am about the agreement reached, at the conciliation meeting between the European Parliament and the Council on 20 July, on a statement on financial programming. Under the terms of this joint declaration, the Commission will now be obliged to evaluate the financial consequences of each of its new proposals, in particular for categories 3 and 4 of the financial perspectives. I am sure that will be a fundamental factor in clarifying the decisions of the budgetary authority. Anyway it will undoubtedly mean better budgetary forecasting and should be extremely useful during future budgetary procedures.
To conclude this overview, which I think has been as brief as it could be, I think, the draft budget being forwarded to you offers a balanced compromise whereby the European Union’s priorities can be funded while absolutely fundamentally respecting the Berlin financial perspectives – and we all know that it was not easy task to define them. The 1999 interinstitutional agreement established conciliation between the institutions in the course of the budgetary procedure, and we are all bound to benefit this year and in the future.
First of all, I would like to pay tribute to the excellent work done by the Portuguese Presidency ahead of the Council’s adoption, at first reading, of the draft budget for 2001. I would also like to highlight the excellent climate in which this budgetary procedure has opened. This year, the provisions of the new interinstitutional agreement of 6 May 1999 have taken full effect. The first session under the trialogue procedure bringing together the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission was held on 6 July, here in Strasbourg, and demonstrated its usefulness in terms of better mutual understanding of our respective positions and priorities.
In this connection, I am pleased with the progress we were already able to make, even before adoption of the draft budget at first reading by the Council, in bringing together the points of view of the institutions. It seems to me that the draft I have just presented to you draws a number of lessons from that conciliation. In any case I hope it gives you a good foundation for starting your work on the budget and that it will contribute to the establishment of a budget for 2001 which respects the priorities of each of the institutions, one which is satisfactory in terms of our joint mission, fulfilling our responsibilities towards Europe and its peoples.
The conciliation meeting between the European Parliament and the Council, which took place on 20 July, was, I think, very positive. In particular, it became possible to find a great many points of agreement between institutions and make good progress on potential sources of disagreement. I hope we can continue to work in the same spirit and produce a budget for the European Communities for the financial year 2001 which gives us the resources to meet the priorities and challenges the European Union is about to face.
Firstly, I want to set out the major guidelines which have determined the way the Council has drawn up this draft budget before going into more detail – though not at length – on the various categories. In the first place, the Council has ensured proper funding, after identifying clear priorities and real needs, for the European Union’s various actions, especially those in the area of external relations, which we were talking about just now – albeit with a gap.
So the evaluation of the likely implementation of the appropriations has been taken into account for commitment appropriations. The Council has also paid special attention to the development of payment appropriations, setting their increase compared with 2000 at a maximum rate of 3.5%, which in particular takes account of the capacity for implementation and the probable rate of payments entailed by the balances to be settled. That growth, which is much higher than the Member States authorise for their national budgets, plus the forecast inflation for 2001, is a mark of the Council’s determination to ensure satisfactory financing of all European Union policies.
Finally, this draft budget remains totally in keeping with the interinstitutional agreement of 6 May 1999on budgetary discipline and improvement of the budgetary procedure. In particular the Council felt it was absolutely essential to respect – and I stress this – each of the annual expenditure ceilings set by the financial perspectives which our three institutions, Parliament, the Council and the Commission, signed up to a year ago.
Those are the bases for the draft budget for the financial year 2001, drawn up by the Council on 20 July, to provide for EUR 95.9 billion in commitment appropriations, an increase of 2.7% over the budget for 2000, and EUR 92.5 billion in payment appropriations, an increase of 3.5% over the budget for 2000.
Particular importance has been accorded to the increase in the importance of appropriations for aid to the Western Balkans, a repeatedly affirmed priority and one I reaffirm here, because I do not accept the comment earlier about ‘chaos’. The situation is sensitive, but not chaotic. There is work to be done, and work is being done. The Council hopes to convert this priority into figures with a total appropriation 30% higher than in 2000. The EUR 614 million adopted by the Council will ensure funding of all foreseeable needs."@en1
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