Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-10-26-Speech-2-174"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20041026.12.2-174"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, I would like to express my agreement with the criticisms already made and, above all, the criticisms of the Council's budgetary irresponsibility. At the time when this House was approving the current financial perspectives, we were perfectly aware that certain headings were insufficient to cover the needs we already knew about in 1999.
Heading 4, ‘External Actions’ is an excellent example. It was created without sufficient resources, without the resources necessary to implement the aid to Kosovo, and every year the Union has committed itself to special interventions in certain parts of the world, as Mr Ferber has also pointed out: Kosovo, the former Yugoslavian republics, Afghanistan, and, recently, Iraq.
Nothing was provided for in the figures in May 1999, and unexpected revisions have been required every year. This Parliament has had to accept some of the cuts to its traditional policies proposed by the Council. After five budgetary years, these cuts amount to a very significant sum for a development aid policy which is diminishing in relative terms, while we are constantly saying that we want a Europe which is open to the world.
Despite the fact that our Parliament was able to increase the Berlin figures for administrative spending in Category 5, we have been faced with budgetary restrictions which I believe have led to increased inefficiency in the Commission's work. Nevertheless, the Council does not hesitate to call for austerity in administrative spending, while awarding itself substantial annual increases.
This year, the problems which were already becoming obvious in Heading 3, ‘Internal Actions’, have finally come to a head. I am not going to repeat what has been said here about the Agencies; we completely and utterly agree with this, but we want the resources necessary to fund them. Furthermore, over this period we have used the so-called flexibility instrument, even going as far as to revise the ceiling of Heading 2. None of this is good enough, ladies and gentlemen of the Council. Of course there should be budgetary discipline and rigour, but what you have been doing over the last five years is not an example of rigour but rather of shoddiness.
Reducing spending by hundreds of millions of euros is not, in this case, a saving, but rather a short-sighted exercise in accountancy. You create new priorities but, in order to put them into practice, you sacrifice some of the existing priorities, based on the principle of not exceeding a certain spending limit. This is not politics, but accountancy. And I believe that politicians can provide more solutions to the problems faced by our society than accountants
and I say this with every respect for accountants.
In relation to the new financial perspectives, I hope that the Council will change its attitude, that it will take a wider view and realise that the Union’s budgetary policy faces much more important challenges than keeping spending below a particular percentage of gross domestic product, which would appear to be the only objective the Council is actually sure of.
Commissioner Schreyer, I would naturally like to join in all the thanks for your good work and wish you good luck."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples