Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-24-Speech-2-251"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20001024.7.2-251"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, it is a promising development that, this year, we are close to sharing the Council’s views where most of the important points are concerned and that we
show budgetary discipline but still uphold most of Parliament’s priorities.
As a Europhile Social Democrat from a Eurosceptic country, I think it is necessary to show that the EU is making efforts which are important to citizens. In this connection, efforts are required to solve the major social problems, for example unemployment. The development of technology in small companies is also a key issue. It looks as though we are going to succeed this year.
The most significant task still to be accomplished relates to the Balkans, of course. It is unfortunate that the Council wants to cut back on aid to the Balkans, with the exception of Serbia, by almost a quarter compared with the Commission’s proposal. There are no objective grounds for this proposal. With the decisions to transfer EUR 175 million to Kosovo and EUR 200 million to Serbia, we have hopefully managed to finance the most acute needs in those countries, but we must not run the risk of people in, for example, Bosnia or Macedonia feeling that we are failing to keep our promises to
in order to be able to provide aid to Serbia. That is particularly important, bearing in mind that there is money for efforts in all these areas. The finance ministers did, of course, receive significantly larger sums of money back from last year’s Budget.
A stable solution is now required when it comes to these contributions and, to a still greater degree, to the long-term planning for the whole of the Western Balkans which is now necessary. If we cannot find any other ways, we must be prepared to revise the Financial Perspective on the understanding that this is being done for the express purpose of finding resources for the current areas within category 4 and not for any other purposes.
For ourselves as Swedish Social Democrats, it is also important to point out that we must now emphasise Budget discipline in order gradually to create space for enlargement of the EU, which is perhaps the most important political task for our generation. We therefore also believe that, in future, we must further reform agricultural policy in the direction of lower costs and that we must definitely remove expenditure such as aid for tobacco cultivation, which makes no sense at all."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples