Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-13-Speech-3-296"
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First of all, I would like to express my thanks to Mr Brok for his report and to Parliament for its swift reaction to the Commission’s request and for speeding up the procedures that I hope will enable us to reach a favourable agreement on this issue.
I would also like to stress that, when we implement this assistance, we not only insist on establishing a stable economic framework, but also on policies being created that are aimed at achieving economic stability. Along with the other donors we are continuing with the necessary commitments in order to pay out these amounts, as the Kosovo authorities have to comply with the obligations and commitments made.
With regard to the amendments that have been put forward, I would like to make a few comments that could help the debate.
First of all, we can quite readily accept some of the amendments. I am referring to Amendments Nos 1, 3, 6 and 9. We feel that there are other amendments that are not justified, not because we disagree with them in principle, but because they are not necessary: for example, Amendments Nos 4 and 5, which refer to the distribution of the burden. This is clearly covered in Recital 9, which says that "the provision of external budgetary support, fairly shared among donors, is essential to help cover the residual financing needs ".
Nor do we consider Amendment No 10 to be necessary, because it states that the aid must clearly focus on the budget. The aid is purely budgetary, and it is not therefore necessary to highlight a point that we feel should be taken for granted.
There is a series of amendments which, in my opinion, are mistaken in their understanding of the nature of macroeconomic aid: these are Amendments Nos 2, 8 and 13, which refer to linking this type of macroeconomic aid with the CART programme, and they therefore ask for the same conditions as for the CART projects. However, we are not talking about CART, but about something completely different. This is not one of my colleague Chris Patten’s responsibilities. I myself have direct sole and exclusive responsibility for the budget within the area of macroeconomic aid. Therefore, we think that these amendments should not be included, because they would cause some confusion.
There is a series of amendments regarding deadlines, procedures and monitoring, in particular Amendments Nos 7, 11 and 14. I would like to comment on each of them.
A problem about which Mr Brok is particularly concerned is that of information. Obviously we are prepared to provide all the necessary information. The problem arises if this information has to be drawn up in the context of other aid, in accordance with the progress of the reform. We are currently providing information on macroeconomic aid and we are prepared to do so and include this aid with other macroeconomic aid, providing all the necessary information so that Parliament can effectively carry out its monitoring work.
Amendment No 11 considers the possibility of creating a group within the Council, of a political nature, to undertake consultations on the implementation of this aid. I stress this again, we are talking about a different type of aid, and we think that the systems already in place for macroeconomic aid should be applied, and not systems for other types of measure.
With regard to the problem indicated in Amendment No 14, the need for the conditions of economic policy to be fulfilled and for a link to be established with Amendment No 4 and for the funds to be used for this type of aid, we do not think that this corresponds to the nature of this measure. We are talking here about assistance, as I was saying, for UNMIK’s budget, with very specific objectives. It is true that we should also use these objectives in order to improve the economic situation and the market economy in Kosovo, but there are not conditions as with other types of aid.
I would like to make a comment on two other amendments that I think are of interest: Amendment No 12 asks for two things. Firstly, for the aid to be implemented within a maximum of six weeks. We can undertake to implement it as soon as possible. We think that to aim to pay out the assistance in the middle of August, at a time when we all know the difficulties with budgetary procedures, is at best a risky idea. For this reason we do not think that this request is correct.
I feel that it is essential to point out that we are not talking here today about part of the action used by the CART programmes and therefore, we are not talking about Kosovo aid projects as part of the European Agency for Reconstruction. We are talking about macroeconomic aid to Kosovo, which is a different type of measure. We are talking simply about budget aid for the United Nations administration in the area. As a result, some of the problems that you have put forward in your proposals, as we will see later, should, in our opinion, be interpreted differently.
With regard to the possibility of passing on the memorandum of understanding that is made between UNMIK and the Commission, I must point out that this memorandum contains some sensitive information and therefore we think that a more efficient system is for this information to be given to the chairmen of the various committees, but under no circumstances for the memorandum of understanding to be sent out.
Lastly, the Commission could accept Amendment No 14 if it were worded differently. That is, if the report were presented in September of the previous year, as these reports are prepared for June and if we could provide the information by September, but not before. The Commission accepts the spirit of the request, but we think that its wording needs to be improved in order to prevent practical problems.
A final comment on Mr Swoboda’s question on the use of the euro in the Kosovo area. I would remind you that, as you know, this was a unilateral decision taken by the Kosovo authorities. The German Central Bank is perfectly aware of this information and of this situation, and the Kosovo bank and payment authority, the German Central Bank and the Austrian Central Bank are currently in contact in order to seek a solution to the problem. I can therefore inform you that these talks are now taking place and I hope that they will achieve a favourable result so that the change will pose as few problems as possible. The Commission is following this matter with the greatest interest, although it is more directly the responsibility of the European Central Bank and the national central banks than of the Commission.
The Community made a contribution of this type in 2000, amounting to EUR 35 million, and the proposal that we adopted in March of this year involves EUR 30 million, which will be allocated to the Kosovo budget in two parts, in order to start up or rather to maintain the operation of UNMIK in the area. Of course we are responsible for the fourth pillar, and this also means paying particular attention to some of the essential changes to the economic system that are currently being made. We are not talking about our aid, but about elements associated with the introduction of a market economy.
We have made a great deal of progress, for example, in establishing a banking and payment system, in developing the private sector and in aspects of taxation, including obviously all aspects of public spending.
We are talking about an exceptional type of aid, which is not dedicated to specific projects and is not linked to any other type of commitment. In this respect it is radically different from the CART aid, which is why it needs a different legal basis, as we explain in our proposal.
With this aid, as in the past, we are going to fund the current expenditure of Kosovo’s budget, and we are talking about salaries for judges, teachers, doctors, the sale, or rather support of public utilities, and, in short, about the basic costs of running the country. It is true that there is some investment expenditure associated with public companies, but we are mainly talking about current expenditure.
Of course, in answer to some of Mr Brok’s questions, first of all a system should be put in place to enable Kosovo to gradually take on its own financial costs. We agree with this idea and our medium-term objective is for the Kosovo budget to be able to fund itself. Last year, the funding was 50-50. Our aim is that progress should continue to be made and we hope that in 2001, 75% of the total budget will be covered by own funds.
Another of your concerns was to know what is happening with the other donors. There is a reasonable amount of burden-sharing between the donors. For the 2001 budget there are other donors who are going to contribute, namely the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Turkey, Canada and the World Bank, to a total of EUR 43 million. Out of these EUR 43 million, EUR 31 million have already been paid out, which is clearly positive and enables us to be reasonably satisfied about the problem of equal distribution of the burden.
Of course we are not considering an additional budgetary allocation. There are resources to carry out this funding with the proportion of the macroeconomic aid included in budgetary heading B7-548 related to the Balkans."@en1
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