Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-10-26-Speech-2-173"
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"en.20041026.12.2-173"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me join in the gratitude expressed for the five years we have been able to spend working with the Commissioner. Back at the beginning, when we had negotiations and Agenda 2000, those years were not easy. Nor were they easy when it came to bringing together the various aspirations and drawing up a single European Budget. Let me very warmly thank you for your cooperation, which has been marked by a high degree of trust, and I of course wish you speedy resumption of your work at the Free University of Berlin in the winter semester, in other words that, if a new Commission takes office tomorrow, the burden of European labours will be lifted from your shoulders and you will again be able to completely devote yourself to your research.
Let me also thank both the rapporteurs, who have managed, under conditions that have not exactly been easy, to put together a very decent package. That is what we have to discuss among ourselves today – where it is that Europe can become visible, where we can create added European value that gives people visible evidence of where our priorities lie, and where Europe makes a contribution to progress.
Turning to the Lisbon strategy, let me say quite plainly that I find myself wondering whether this strategy for establishing a competitive economy throughout Europe is just a matter of redistribution by way of the European Budget, or whether certain Member States have particular tasks to perform; I am thinking in particular, Commissioner, of the country from which both you and I come and in which your party shares in the responsibilities of government. Might we not do much more for Europe’s competitiveness if structures were to be broken up, thereby helping to create real growth?
It should not, therefore, be said only that Lisbon means using the European Budget as a roundabout way of distributing more money among the people. We have to begin by making the necessary reforms possible at ground level. There have already been many proposals relating to this from both Lisbon and the German Government, and I would like to see them put into practice.
To move on to the Budget, though, the past five years have seen the administrative apparatus of the European Union expand as never before, something that has to do not only with enlargement, but also with the Council’s inventiveness in extending administration in the shape of the agencies. Like Mr Walter, I wonder whether we are paying for all this out of the policy sections of the budget, where it does not belong in the first place, or whether the Council is at last willing to include it under the heading of administrative expenditure?
When it comes to foreign policy, I am fed up with the foreign ministers wandering the earth doling out money, and us then being supposed, again and again, to give the new priorities budgetary form, a task which is far from simple. That, too, has been mentioned, and, as the old priorities have become irrelevant, we have opted for a tough approach to the Budget, and I hope we will get out of the Council some sensible results that will help, not only to make this Europe of ours visible, but also to make savings where it really is possible to do so."@en1
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