Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-14-Speech-2-095"
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"en.20040914.8.2-095"2
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"Madam President, as Mrs Guy-Quint stated a moment ago, there is always something predictable about debates such as today’s. The Commission decides on a preliminary draft budget, the Council compiles a draft budget and without knowing the figures, it can be taken as read that the Council will be making cutbacks in agricultural spending, and in all other budget categories, for that matter. A large proportion of agricultural spending is laid down by law.
I have always taken the view that the Commission is better equipped to determine precise spending than the Council, and that is why I think it is a good tradition on the part of Parliament to take the Commission more seriously than the Council in this area. In any event, we need to wait and see what, exactly, the letter of amendment at the end of October will contain. We in the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe hope – and Parliament’s position on the 2005 Budget already partly reflects this – that two trial projects will be maintained. The first one concerns the possibility, in future, of reaching assurances against infectious animal diseases which can break out at some point in the future and will impact heavily on the agricultural budget. The second one must culminate in a system of quality assessment for European agricultural products. After all, it is difficult to justify farmers in Europe being increasingly obliged to compete with farmers elsewhere in the world, while farmers elsewhere in the world need not observe the same standards.
A great deal can be said about the many budget categories. With regard to the structural funds, it is, in my view, of essential importance for the effect of the n+2 rule to be analysed very carefully and to be checked in relation to the estimates. If it transpires at this point that there are still large surpluses, it can be checked whether or not it is possible to make cutbacks. Without observing the order of the chapters of the budget, I should also like to say something about Category 5. In my view, by apportioning the highest rise to the Council itself, the Council has indeed been a little too generous where its own interests are concerned. It is, however, a good tradition for the Council and Parliament not to criticise each other’s budgets and to leave them intact.
I do think, though, that for a few years now, a new element has crept into the Council’s budget, namely spending for the common foreign and security policy. I wonder whether that is actually an administrative item of expenditure on the part of the Council. I do not think so. In my view, it is clearly a political activity which should be assessed as such, and Parliament should have more say in this, rather than merely receiving information, as it does at present. One final point: Parliament has initiated many trial projects on which the Commission should have reported at the beginning of September. That has not yet happened. Commissioner Schreyer could perhaps state the exact date when the list with the results of the trial projects and the preparatory actions will be produced."@en1
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