Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-12-Speech-2-023"
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"en.20001212.3.2-023"2
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Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, following the Nice European Council, where European integration made significant progress, which the President of France will shortly present to you, I am delighted to present you with the second reading of the draft budget of the European Union, as established by the Council on 24 November. It is a pleasure, but also an honour and an emotional moment for me to be here with you, at the heart of European democracy.
The third important aspect of this Council second reading concerns the agreement reached on the allocation for the “Spirit of Enterprise” programme, which continues and complements the “Employment initiative” for the years 2001 to 2005. The Council and the President have agreed on a very substantial allocation of EUR 450 million for this period and on an allocation of EUR 100 million for 2001. The credit for this result, which is proof of the priority given by the European Union to the development of small and medium-sized businesses and to employment must be given to your rapporteur, Jutta Haug, who is in the Chamber today. This action is also one of the Council’s political priorities, as expressed at the Luxembourg, Lisbon and Feira Summits.
Lastly, agreement was reached on 23 November on an increase in payment appropriations for the 2001 budget, which is an increase of 3.5% over the 2000 budget. As you all know, this aim is particularly “dear” to the Council and I wish to emphasise that an increase of 3.5% will require a considerable effort on the part of the Member States, given that this is slightly above the increase in their national budgets. However, I am, of course, aware that this agreement will also require a considerable effort by Parliament, because it will require you to arbitrate on sometimes sensitive issues in your first reading.
This agreement on the increase in payments has been made possible by the Commission’s proposal to rebudget an amount of EUR 1600 million in commitment appropriations for Community initiative programmes for 2002 and for subsequent years. This proposal, which is the result of the time limits necessary for the adoption of these programmes, has been accepted by the Council and by Parliament. It therefore means that payment appropriations requirements for the preliminary draft budget will be reduced by EUR 700 million.
When the Council voted at second reading for a budget increase of 2.5%, it took due account of this new factor. For its second reading, Parliament therefore has the considerable margin for manoeuvre of around EUR 1 billion to fund its budgetary priorities, whilst remaining within an overall increase of 3.5%.
The Council did not, of course, limit its second reading to the four points that I have just mentioned. It also accepted several European Parliament amendments in heading 3 on internal policy, particularly in order to take account of developments in legislation.
Furthermore, the Council accepted certain preparatory actions and certain pilot projects within the limits laid down by the Interinstitutional Agreement, having consulted the Commission on their feasibility.
Finally, the list of points of agreement between the Council and Parliament would not be complete if I did not mention two important texts that have been adopted this year. First of all, a joint declaration on improving the information provided to Parliament and the Council on the Commission’s financial programming, which was adopted in July, on the initiative of Mr Colom i Naval, which I welcome.
Secondly, a joint declaration has just been adopted, quite recently, on the progress report on the reform of the Commission, on the initiative of Mr Elles.
These two declarations improve the transparency of the budgetary procedure and of the reforms currently taking place in the Commission. I think that they are bound to improve the efficiency of these procedures, which is, I believe, an objective shared by all our institutions. Personally, I consider this to be extremely important.
More generally, I wish to emphasise that the budgetary procedure that will be completed in a few days has clearly demonstrated the interest in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 6 May 1999. It is as a result of the consultation between the three institutions, which is provided for and regulated by this agreement, that we have been able to work together on this draft 2001 budget. Mobilising the flexibility instrument, which is one of the key innovations of the 1999 agreement, has therefore enabled us to conclude an agreement on the funding of the European Union’s external actions in 2001, whilst taking account of factors that may occur along the way. These additional appropriations will enable us to speed up the European Union’s aid programme for the Western Balkans in 2001. By the same token, within this Interinstitutional Agreement, the Council has left substantial margins within the ceilings of the financial perspective established in 1999, largely for heading 3 – internal policy – and for heading 4 – external action. These margins will give the European Parliament the opportunity, at second reading, to set its own priorities within the various Community policies and actions.
The Council’s second reading was preceded on 23 November by a conciliation meeting between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission. The outcome of this long meeting was, I believe, a twofold success. It was a success for Europe because we were able to overcome our initial differences of opinion and a political success because this budget is an expression not only of a compromise, but also – especially – of our priorities.
Lastly, before you proceed to the final adoption of this budget, I wish to stress the importance the Council attaches to some of the fundamental budgetary rules, in the field of entering appropriations in the reserve, the legal basis and the classification of expenditure.
First of all, the entering of appropriations in the reserve can only be carried out by the budgetary authority if the corresponding legal basis has not yet been adopted, in accordance with the provisions of the financial regulation. The Council therefore, at second reading, re-established all the appropriations entered into the reserve by Parliament for reasons other than the absence of a legal basis.
In this respect, I welcome the agreement that has been reached at first reading by our two institutions to abolish the conditional entering of appropriations in the reserve, which had been carried out by Parliament, for heading 4, the performance reserve, and for heading 5, with regard to appropriations relating to the reform of the Commission, under Letter of Amendment No 1.
Secondly, I should like to insist on the respect for the rules that is incumbent on the institutions with regard to classifying appropriations as compulsory or non-compulsory expenditure. Your Committee on Budgets has proposed to change two budget lines by amendment at second reading, one concerning the early retirement scheme and the other expenditure relating to the fisheries agreement.
I wish to draw the European Parliament’s attention to the fact that, under the terms of the Interinstitutional Agreement, these budget lines constitute compulsory expenditure, which was, moreover, acknowledged by Parliament at first reading. Consequently, appropriations included in these lines must be considered to have been definitively adopted following second reading in Council, in accordance with Article 272 of the Treaty and cannot therefore be further modified.
To conclude this overview, I wish to join those who have highlighted the excellent climate in which this budgetary procedure has taken place. The discussions were at times frank, but were always relevant and underpinned by ongoing exchanges of views, which enabled us better to understand each other and therefore to more easily conclude an agreement, which I hope everyone will find satisfactory. A good budget is a budget that has been thoroughly discussed. This budget should therefore be born under the best auspices. I wish to personally thank Terence Wynn, chairman of the Committee on Budgets, and the three rapporteurs, Jutta Haug, Markus Ferber and Joan Colom i Naval as well as all the members of the Committee on Budgets that I have had the pleasure of meeting during the six months of the French Presidency.
I can assure you that the Council’s objective, throughout this budgetary procedure, has been to produce a budget for 2001 that will enable the European Union to respond to the crises that affect it within Europe itself but also those occurring beyond its borders. I think that, together, going beyond the priorities of each of our institutions, we have created, step by step, a budget for the 2001 financial year, which reflects the ambition that we all advocate, of a Europe at the service of its citizens. You must now give this outcome your approval.
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Indeed, the representatives of the three institutions spared no effort to conclude an overall agreement on the 2001 budget and I wish to take this opportunity to thank, on behalf of the Council, both the members of the parliamentary delegation and Mrs Schreyer.
The Council has therefore proceeded to its second reading of the budget, taking account of the agreements concluded with the delegation from Parliament, with the ever-present desire to vote for a budget that will enable us to fund all of the European Union’s priorities and a budget that matches up to real needs and to our true ability to make use of appropriations. This budget will also enable us to implement the reform of the common agricultural policy and to carry out the programming of structural actions as defined in 1999, as well as all of the major programmes decided on jointly by Parliament and the Council. I am thinking specifically here of research, the Trans-European Networks and culture or audiovisual creation, with the MEDIA Plus programme, on which an agreement was concluded on 23 November.
I should now like to focus on the main progress made at the second reading in Council. The first point of agreement between the Council and Parliament concerns external action, that is, heading 4 of the budget, on which our institutions shared a common goal, which was to release substantial funding for the Balkans region in 2001, given recent developments in Serbia’s political situation, and to do so without passing the costs of this on to the other geographical priorities of the Union’s external action.
The agreement reached on 23 November therefore defines an overall allocation for the Balkans of EUR 839 million, of which EUR 240 million are earmarked for Serbia. This very considerable amount, which matches the heavy requirements for 2001, will be largely funded by mobilising the flexibility instrument for an amount of EUR 200 million. Parliament thereby retains considerable room for manoeuvre at second reading to fund all its other geographical priorities and to do so within the ceiling of heading 4, as the Council had hoped.
The second important aspect of the Council’s second reading concerns Letter of Amendment No 2, which enables the Commission’s new provisions in the field of agriculture to be implemented. The Council has accepted this Letter of Amendment in its entirety and, out of the same concern to act in accordance with the most recent data available, the Council has also accepted the European Parliament’s amendments on rural development expenditure, which demonstrate the progress that has been made in the adoption and implementation of national programmes.
Finally, the Council voted, as had been arranged at the conciliation meeting of 23 November, in favour of additional credits to the value of EUR 60 million, for the funding of screening tests for BSE. This sum of EUR 60 million is a preliminary, rapid budgetary response to the Council’s decision to extend tests carried out on cattle. It must therefore be seen as a provisional sum. The BSE crisis will indeed require other measures, for which a budgetary assessment has not yet been completed and when a system has been more precisely defined, we will, of course, have to take account of its potential impact on the budget and to release the necessary appropriations whilst, as a matter of priority, studying the possibilities of redeploying funds within heading I. Additional funding can then be provided through a supplementary and amending budget within the financial perspective.
I am delighted that our institutions have been able to reach agreement on adopting, at only one reading, all aspects of this Letter of Amendment No 2, which concerns not only agricultural expenditure but also the fisheries agreements and the inclusion of an estimated balance for the 2000 financial year in the preliminary draft budget for 2001."@en1
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