Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-11-Speech-2-022"
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"en.20030311.3.2-022"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the annual policy strategy gives a framework to the 2004 Budget, which will be special in that it will be the first Budget for people in twenty-five Member States and, officially speaking, the first Budget in the new form in which greater emphasis is laid on European Union policies.
The proposal on the financial framework must be appropriate to the challenges that the future will bring, and, in financial terms, these will affect the issues Mr Mulder raised, of what we can do to really make Europe into an economy based on knowledge and the most competitive economy of all, of how much more we can contribute to this from the Budget, and of which programmes are required in order to do this. The expectations to which the President of the Commission referred – that is to say, the public's expectation that the European Union should contribute to their security – invite the question as to what, for example, that means for the European Budget. As the task of securing our borders is a matter of common interest, should it not find its expression in some sort of joint financing?
Enlargement will result in increased economic disparities within the European Union, and this will make particular demands on the funds we will be injecting as an expression of solidarity. These tasks will make it necessary for us to submit proposals. Even if, as a European Union, we want to play a greater role in foreign affairs, this will have to be set down in appropriate proposals on the Budget.
This means that our task will be to produce proposals for a Union consisting of twenty-five or twenty-seven Member States, and it stands to reason that any such proposals must represent an added value for the citizens of the European Union. I can already promise you that we will make use of the time available to us this year to work closely with Parliament in elaborating these proposals.
Enlargement will become a reality in 2004, and we in the institutions must do everything possible to ensure that it is a success from the very outset. The new Member States will participate from the day they join in all the programmes funded by the European Budget – programmes in agricultural policy, structural policy, environmental policy, the research programmes, and, to take another example, the programmes to promote trans-European networks.
Whilst the financial framework for the new Member States was negotiated in Copenhagen, the adjustment of the Financial Perspective has to be a decision taken jointly by the Council, Parliament and the Commission. That being so, it necessarily follows that Parliament has, as agreed, the right to examine the appropriateness of the proposal to the financial adjustment of the framework. I do hope, though, that we will be able to come to a joint resolution on the adjustment of the financial framework before the treaties are formally signed on the Agora in Athens. Speaking for the Commission, I can reiterate that we will of course give you every assistance in examining every option when it comes to framing a joint resolution on this.
In 2004 there will be new programmes for the new Member States, for example the Schengen facility, which will be, for the first time, a sort of cofinancing arrangement, whereby the European Budget will fund the performance of tasks in fulfilment of the Schengen criteria. For the first time, too, there will be financial aid, for example for the decommissioning of atomic power stations. As the new Member States will also, however, have to transpose legislation on competition and the environment from day one, the Commission will also be asking the budgetary authority, as soon as this year, to authorise additional posts, and, as we will have to cope with a new linguistic diversity, half the posts required in 2004 will be reserved to the language services.
Among the other priorities for 2004 are the maintenance of political stability, and, as the President of the Commission was just saying, this has both an external and an internal dimension. As regards the external effects, this priority will find expression in the Budget by our proposal for an increase in funds for the Balkan region and also for the MEDA programme. The Commission also proposes that pre-accession aid for Bulgaria and Romania – as promised to both those countries – should be increased in order to give both these countries more help towards achieving their goal of becoming Member States of the European Union in 2007.
The Commission also proposes that funds for Turkey should be substantially increased in order to support processes of reform and its preparations for accession to the European Union. The Commission will, in addition, be putting forward a new proposal for dealing with migration issues within the various policy areas. We will be proposing a new multiannual programme for this. Another priority is sustainable growth, which means that, for example, one of our proposals that needs to be improved is that on ways of combating marine pollution arising from tanker accidents, and we also need to build up resources for the fight against communicable diseases.
When I compare this list with what Mr Mulder said in his speech and with your report, on which I congratulate you, many of the priorities set for the 2004 Budget by Parliament and the Commission appear to be very similar. In so far as that is the case, I also hope that we will be able to bring the Budget procedure to a satisfactory conclusion. I also want to congratulate Mrs Gill on her report.
I would like to use the time remaining to me to deal briefly with two questions that have been put. The first question has to do with the proposal for an instrument for the Budget lines in Chapter A-30. We will be putting such a proposal to Parliament at the end of April. As regards the second, on the funding of parties, what is crucial in the first place is that we at last achieve the breakthrough and enact a legal basis enabling this chapter to be concluded in such a way that there is a quite unambiguous legal base on which funds can be allocated to this from the European Budget. As regards the question of who, in view of the separation of the powers, is most competent to administer such funds, we will certainly still have the opportunity to debate this in greater depth.
In 2004, enlargement – an historic event – will be a reality. The President of the Commission has described how the Commission has decided to discharge its responsibility and submit proposals for the Union's tasks, and the financial resources they will require, in the period after 2006. The Commission has a very open mind as regards the arguments as to whether this proposal for the new Financial Perspective – that is to say, for the period after 2006 – should cover the period up to 2013 or 2011. I take the view that this is in fact a propitious time to shift to a five-year cycle. We are fortunate in that we will have the time to debate these matters together and determine the best framework."@en1
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