Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-22-Speech-2-105"
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"en.20021022.6.2-105"2
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"Mr President, I would also like to thank those who worked together to help produce the budget for 2003. I would like to thank all my fellow members of the Committee on Budgets, the highly competent budget secretariat, the Presidium, above all today’s President and, finally, the Commission, the Council and, especially, a very pragmatic and proactive Danish Presidency.
At a meeting attended by the secretaries-general of all the institutions, we thus produced a total sum of approximately EUR 77 million remaining unused by all the institutions in total. The maximum amount the Commission can spend on preparing for enlargement amounts to approximately EUR 72 million.
I would like to say a few words on Parliament’s own share of this frontloading
According to the proposal which both the Committee on Budgets and Parliament’s own Presidium supported last night, this amounted to EUR 43 million for the current year. This is money which in fact, in line with the far-sighted way of handling money which Parliament has used hitherto, we should have spent on early repayments on Parliament’s own properties. We will now postpone this by one year. This also means that we will receive some of this money back one year later. Of the EUR 43 million which will thus instead be transferred to the Commission, we shall, still in line with the proposal we have to reach an opinion on today, receive EUR 35 million back in 2003. In this context, let me mention that the original proposal was for EUR 40 million. We are thus now proposing that this be changed to EUR 35 million.
This means that Parliament’s share of this frontloading, seen over two budget years, will be EUR 8 million, a figure which I consider to be well balanced. It is generous but, at the same time, well balanced seen in comparison with all the other institutions.
This shows that this frontloading, as I see it, is developing into a considerable success and could also be used in other contexts in the future. It creates the opportunity to use a budget over several years to make the best possible use of resources.
Earlier, I mentioned that we promised the Commission that we would contribute to attempting to solve the problems of the costs of preparing for enlargement. A promise is a promise and, as we know, it must be kept. We now stand here having implemented frontloading which gives us the opportunity to comply with what we promised. This is an excellent feeling.
For me, all this is also about a kind of investment in good relations. Enlargement will only succeed if we realise that it actually is something we must work on together. It is a joint undertaking. As the rapporteur, I am very grateful for the way in which all the institutions, large and small, have played their part in attempting to resolve this very difficult situation.
Throughout this year, the EU’s administrative budget, what we term heading 5, has been the budget’s major problem. We started the year with a large predicted deficit in the 2003 budget. This was said to be in the region of EUR 140 million. Although this was reduced in various stages during the spring, the Commission in its preliminary draft budget proposed that the flexibility instrument be used to the tune of EUR 66 million, primarily to cover the Commission’s costs in completing the preparations for enlargement.
Both the Council and Parliament opposed such a solution for different reasons. Firstly, because it is hard to see an administrative budget as the kind of issue where the flexibility instrument should be used. It can hardly be claimed that it is a case of unforeseen expenses or that enlargement is something that has suddenly come upon us.
The second reason was because, together with other areas where the flexibility instrument has already been earmarked, this would use up half the instrument and thus make it impossible for it to be used in areas where significantly better use could presumably be made of it.
The third reason, which is not least important for politicians who feel a sense of responsibility, is that the budget limits are actually there to be complied with, even if it can be claimed with a certain amount of justification that the EU’s budget is far too rigid.
When we entered into this agreement between the Council and Parliament at a uniquely early point in Brussels on 19 July, we achieved at least three things. We read the whole budget and respected the given ceiling for heading 5, we knew how large the Council’s budget was to be and we had limited the European Parliament’s own budget. Within this framework, the priorities which Parliament had supported even in the guidelines were entirely feasible, these being primarily two things. The main and obvious priority was enlargement. In view of the decisions subsequently taken, we know that if the Member States comply with their undertakings on ten new Member States at the Council meeting in Copenhagen in December and if the agreements are signed in March, we will be able to have 147 observers from all these countries here at the European Parliament as early as April next year. The necessary decisions will be made in terms of property, premises, etc.
The second priority was implementing necessary reforms. These will be required with or without enlargement, especially when it comes to Parliament. Here, the issues are primarily those key areas where every parliament, whether national or European, has to be strong. As far as the European Parliament is concerned, the issue is one of reinforcing the budget structure, not only of the Committee on Budgets but also of all the other committees in their important work on the budget. Furthermore, it is about strengthening Parliament’s legislative function. In a very short time, this has become a parliament with considerable legislative power. As such, the conditions under which this power is exercised must also be improved.
Once all this was done, there remained two important issues to resolve within the framework of the 2003 budget. It was a question of distribution across all the institutions, with approaching enlargement as the main priority in this context too. It was also a question of finding a solution for the Commission’s unresolved problems regarding financing the preparations for enlargement. The latter is particularly important as, following conciliation, one party was clearly the loser, namely the Commission. As early as at the conciliation stage, both the Council and Parliament specifically promised to help attempt to solve the Commission’s problems ahead of enlargement. This promise has subsequently been repeated on numerous occasions both by me and other representatives of both the Council and Parliament. It is in this context that the concept of frontloading enters the picture as the instrument we came to use.
The initial step involved obtaining a figure from all the institutions for the amount of money remaining in the annual budget, that is, the budget for 2002. It is these funds which we can use in a second step to reduce pressure on the 2003 budget and which can be transferred to the Commission to ensure that we are able to meet the costs of preparations for enlargement."@en1
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