Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-26-Speech-3-033"
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"en.20051026.2.3-033"2
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".
Mr President, I should like to thank both the rapporteurs for the huge amount of effort they have put into drafting the budget reports, and to congratulate them on having dealt with the huge number of amendments that have been tabled. Once again, Parliament is faced with the difficult task of adopting a draft budget that not only meets our expectations, but at the same time can be agreed on with the Council. The Commission only increased commitments and payments by 4% and 5.9% respectively in the draft 2006 budget, in the expectation that the Council would otherwise raise objections. Yet the Council still made substantial cuts, eventually reducing the draft budget from 1.02% to 1.01% of gross national income.
Constant cuts to EU spending by the Council pose a threat to the principles of cohesion and solidarity upon which the concept of European integration is founded. I need hardly add that this is a source of great concern to the new Member States, including Poland. Such cuts also place a question mark over the implementation, however minimal, of the principles of the Lisbon Strategy, in which the new Member States also take a great interest.
The Polish delegation in the Union for Europe of the Nations Group is celebrating a victory in the parliamentary and presidential elections held recently in Poland. We have read press reports from many EU Member States that wrongly state that the Law and Justice Party and the President-elect, Lech Kaczyński, are opposed to the EU. Some even go so far as to describe the imaginary threats that Poland and the European Union will face as a result of these elections. I should like to take this opportunity to state most emphatically that these threats are fictitious. We are in favour of the EU, even if we criticise its lack of cohesion and solidarity.
The question I would ask is whether European integration is put more at risk by one of the many parties in Europe that voice criticism of some of the EU’s more questionable practices, or by those who are in favour of budget cuts. The position adopted by Parliament’s Committee on Budgets, and, we hope, by Parliament as a whole, may appear modest. We are quite sure, however, that it could guarantee at least a minimum level of expenditure, and one that we would find acceptable if it meant that an even smaller budget would be avoided."@en1
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