Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-01-Speech-3-068"
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"en.20041201.11.3-068"2
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Mr President, as Vice-Chairman of the Temporary Committee on policy challenges and budgetary means of the enlarged Union 2007-2013, I am speaking on behalf of the Chairman, Mr Borrell Fontelles, to put his question to the Council, and I welcome Mr Nicolaï being here. As the Council knows, Parliament convened this temporary committee and Mr Böge is its rapporteur; so far we have eight working documents and because as yet they are only working documents, we have not taken any formal positions.
We mentioned the issue of trialogues, but it is fair to say that after an informal meeting we had this morning, Mr Nicolaï, you may give us a response to that. Parliament’s position right now is that we should be having monthly trialogues, but I am sure your response will enlighten us on your thinking on this. I personally go some way towards your sentiments on this.
An important issue is the question regarding the ‘Prodi package’. We really need to know where the Council is coming from. What is the basis for your building blocks? What is the basis for your working documents? Is it the Prodi package or are you taking a different approach?
Finally, the last question: ‘In the Council’s view, what connection exists between the Commission’s proposals on the new financial perspective and the issue of own resources?’ Some of us, being British, are not bothered, but for the majority in this House it is a crucial issue. On that, Mr Nicolaï, we would appreciate some answers.
Hopefully the questions that we put before the Council and the responses that we get back will help us reach some conclusions. Having said that, to be perfectly honest, I hope that when Parliament does make its decisions there are certain items that it will be resolute about.
In the previous Parliament, in a report that was voted in my name, we set out certain conditions, certain priorities, one of which was quite simple: there will be no interinstitutional agreement without the agreement of Parliament. The Council is well aware of this but it needs to be stressed, as it is in the text of this oral question. We have also the issue of the length of the proposed financial perspective and Parliament will, I am pretty sure, bring it down to something like five years rather than seven years.
More important is the position of a fallback. Mr Böge asks in one of his working documents: what are the options if we cannot come to an agreement with the Council? Do we go for Article 26 of the IIA or do we go for Article 272 of the Treaty?’
Having been in this Parliament for the past 15 years and involved with the Committee on Budgets for all that time, I am pretty sure that Parliament will go for Article 272. That message needs to be got across to the Council. I know that you, Mr Nicolaï, are well aware of that and also of the consequences if we do not reach an agreement. Therefore, it is incumbent on both our institutions to make sure that we reach an agreement.
Moving away from the oral question for one moment, I am now the rapporteur for the discharge, and it is becoming obvious that Parliament’s budget gets a bad press every November when the Court of Auditors report is produced. I would hope that the institutions – and if not the institutions then at least I hope Parliament – can make a decision that we will not conclude an interinstitutional agreement until the budgetary authority has agreed a solution to the audit, to the legality and regularity of the European Union budget.
It is no use concluding a financial perspective that will be seen by the general public as being misspent, misused and irregular throughout the next five, six, seven years or whatever period we agree to.
I come now to the questions; they are there for everyone to see and are quite simple. The first one is: ‘How does the Council intend to cooperate with Parliament?’ We are talking about how we are going to work together. Hopefully we will not work as two separate organisations and there will be some work in tandem, so that we can share our ideas and make sure that the building-block approach of the Council matches our own approach as set out in Mr Böge’s working documents.
There is also a question about the calendar of the Presidency, when you hope to conclude, what your present Netherlands Presidency hopes to achieve, and what you think the next Presidency will achieve by the middle of next year."@en1
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