Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-10-26-Speech-2-164"
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my first speech to this House as a member of the European Commission five years ago was, of course, about the 2000 Budget. It was a Budget for only 15 Member States, for a Union of only 375 million people. It was in that Budget that pre-accession aid was adopted for the first time, from which funds flowed to six states with which negotiations were in progress.
We are talking specifically here about the take-up of funds from the Structural Funds. All the parties concerned have joined together over recent years in making an effort to improve implementation, and now we have succeeded, in that, this year, take-up of funds is much improved in comparison with what it had been in the past. For this year, then, we have applied for an additional EUR 2 billion as means of payment for the Structural Funds, as there is demand for them on the part of the Member States. We can therefore safely work on the assumption that implementation will work very well next year too.
Let me move on to personnel issues and to administrative expenditure. 2005 will be the second year of the enlarged EU, and the Commission is asking for a second
of additional staff in order to be able to handle the greater requirements of an enlarged Union. Mrs Jensen noted that the Council is awarding itself a far greater increase in administrative expenditure than it is allowing to the other institutions. To you too, Mrs Jensen, I would like to express my congratulations on your work; being the rapporteur for all the other institutions makes all kinds of demands on you.
I wish to thank your House for accepting the 700 posts that the Commission had requested, but you can well imagine that I am not equally enthusiastic to learn that you are saying that 150 of them should be put in reserve in the first instance. It goes without saying that it is one of Parliament’s important duties to constantly monitor what is done with these posts and whether the right priorities are being set for their use, but I would like to argue in favour of the imposition of conditions on the release of the reserve that can actually be met in future. We do of course know that the whole recruitment process will take time.
I would also, on behalf of the Prodi Commission, like to thank Parliament for always having approved the increases in posts for which we asked, for you are of course aware that increased expectations cannot be met without the resources to do so being in place.
Throughout all these years, it was the foreign policy section of the Budget that was under the greatest pressure; this was partly in consequence of events around the world and also because the European Union has actually started to take more joint responsibility, and the resources have to be provided for it to do so. This was in part facilitated only by drawing on the flexibility reserve. Likewise, in 2005, it is highly probable that we will find it impossible to manage the foreign policy budget without having recourse to funds from the flexibility reserve.
The letter of amendment that you have received from the Commission in respect of the 2005 Budget frees up funds in the foreign policy sphere and in the foreign budget, and so we are able to propose that support grants for Croatia be made in future out of Category 7, as accession negotiations with Croatia are to begin next year. We have also proposed that economic aid to the Turkish Cypriot community be funded from the category for pre-accession aid. It is gratifying to learn that the Council has now decided to treat this financial package as additional. I would ask your House to treat this proposal as a matter of great urgency and endorse the aid that we are proposing for the Turkish part of Cyprus. In so doing, we should also be aiming to help both communities to arrive at a final solution to the division of Cyprus and to overcome it.
In response to a request from the Council, the Commission also proposes, as part of the 2005 Budget, the continuation of the PEACE programme for Northern Ireland for another two years. Although this, too, is a sensible course of action, let me observe, as regards the last three points I have mentioned, that it was always the Council that made the request, and always had very good reasons of policy for doing so. I must remind you, though, that resolutions at lofty summits, right though they are in policy terms, must always be followed by Budget resolutions laboriously hammered out on the down-to-earth environment of the Budget.
In comparison with the current year, we will see the greatest increase in the 2005 Budget in the agricultural budget, which will rise from EUR 44 billion to EUR 50 billion next year. There are important and good reasons for this. Firstly, this will be the first time that the Budget includes direct grants to farmers in the new Member States. Secondly, the exchange rate is higher than it was. Thirdly, there have been agricultural reforms decided on by the Council, which have resulted in increased – rather than reduced – outgoings. Taking everything into consideration, then, the agricultural budget will next year require 0.48% of each Member State’s gross national income, and nearly 45% of the total European Budget.
Although this structure, with its bias towards the agricultural sector, has its own history and sound reasoning behind it, we have to ask ourselves the simple question as to whether this structure is appropriate to the challenges of the future, or whether we need to set other priorities for the future and for the next Financial Perspective. One of these priorities will of course be to achieve the Lisbon targets, and all must be called on to help do this. Targets have been set, they have been agreed to by all, and either we take seriously these targets that have been set or we do not. If, though, we take them seriously, more must in future be made available from the European Budget for such investments in the future as research, education and innovation. This is a quite crucial challenge.
It is apparent from some of the debates among the Member States at Council level that the Member States are advocating a future reduction of the Budget to 1% of gross national income, expressed as commitment appropriations, which would mean that the absolute level for the 2005 Budget would be perpetuated in the future. If, at the same time, agricultural expenditure were to be included in this area on a permanent basis, it would mean that little of the structure would change in future, but the European Union will not be capable of mastering the tasks and challenges of the future with a structure from the past. A change is therefore needed.
What I expect to be my last speech to this House has to do with the first Budget for a European Union with 25 Member States. That sums up the historic change that we have brought about in those five years. Not one day goes past when I do not rejoice that we have managed to overcome the division of Europe, and that now, here in Strasbourg and in Brussels, policies can be made for a Union of 450 million people. What a great development!
Before you lie difficult negotiations; there have been others in the past, but what must be given attention is the discrepancy between what the European public have been promised and what is actually done later; it must not be allowed to grow, or else Europe will be a cause of frustration and disappointment. We are all endeavouring to ensure that this does not happen, and that the European Budget will instead have a structure appropriate to the demands of the future.
I now hope that the European Parliament, the European Council and the future Commission will take very wise decisions, not only in relation to the Budget for 2005, but also, and in particular, to the next Financial Perspective. I hope that the cooperation between Parliament and the Commission in matters relating to the Budget will continue to be as good as it has been over the last five years.
The European Budget has also become steadily more important and an important tool for European policy. For that reason, it must be solid; it must be developed within a reliable framework; it must be set out transparently and implemented efficiently. I am glad that, in these five years, we have managed to reform and modernise the Budget procedure as a whole – not only in drawing up a now more political Budget, but also in structuring one that is activity-based.
The Budget itself has become more political. The new Budget Regulation and the reformed accounting system were major feats of strength on the part of all the institutions together – Parliament, Commission, Council, and the Court of Auditors as well. I would like to extend very, very warm thanks for these great shared efforts and for this very efficient cooperation, particularly of course to the members of the Committee on Budgets, of the Committee on Budgetary Control, and to the members of the Council’s Budget Committee.
It was another feat of strength on the part of the Budget Committee to package, process and prioritise the many amendments tabled by Members to the Budget for 2005, and I compliment the rapporteur, Mr Garriga Polledo, who has drafted this report and the many amendments to it with the sure-footedness of one who is very experienced in budgeting. Congratulations on this achievement!
My compliments also to the new chairman of the Committee on Budgets. It is always a very difficult task to take over such an important and difficult task in the midst of a Budget procedure. The committee under your chairmanship is also a very fine one, with very fine members.
Over recent years, Budgets have been at their lowest in the recent history of their kind in the European Union. As Commissioner for the Budget, I am very proud of the fact, for it shows that we are working in strict accordance with the principles of budgetary discipline, but the relative reduction in recent years’ budgets was intended to make room for the taking on of new tasks, in particular of expenditure destined for the new Member States, which they will indeed receive.
Agenda 2000, the current Financial Perspective, made provision for this. The Financial Perspective makes corresponding provision for the 2005 Budget to have an upper limit of EUR 119 billion in commitment appropriations, equivalent to 1.14% of the gross national income of the Union of Fifteen, and we always have to remind ourselves of that when considering what the Financial Perspective should be like in the future. According to all the institutions – the Council, Parliament and the Commission – the 2005 Budget requires at least EUR 116 billion in commitment appropriations. The three institutions’ proposals for commitment appropriations differ only very slightly. Why is this so? It is, of course, because there is very little room for manoeuvre, as so much was laid down both by Agenda 2000 and in the accession treaties.
There is, however, a great disparity in the estimates of the actual amount to be spent or paid next year. It does, of course, depend on what is being estimated, and on how much is to be taken up. We have to be serious about ensuring that voting commitment appropriations actually results in the money being paid out in succeeding years, and so the Commission cannot in fact support the cuts that the Council has proposed in this area. We are grateful to your House for insisting that at least the funds we proposed must be reinstated, and indeed, for proposing an increase in them."@en1
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