Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-05-17-Speech-3-075"
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"en.20060517.3.3-075"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I rejoice in this brief opportunity to reflect once more on the debate, and there are just two points that I would like to consider.
Certain Members of your House who negotiated with us – Mr Mulder and Mr Walter among them – have said that your House believes it has succeeded in getting the most out that it could. The negotiations were tough, and what could be achieved was achieved; I can do no other than confirm that your House, quite rightly, gave us, the Presidency, a difficult time during the negotiations in terms of the pressure it piled on in order, quite understandably, to achieve the best possible outcomes. To those who have now described this compromise as not good enough and stated their intention of voting against it on the grounds that they believe it does nothing to make European goals achievable, I would like to put a question. What, then, would be the consequence of our failing to agree on a compromise in this matter, if we had not, together, managed to resolve the issue of the Inter-Institutional Agreement and of the Financial Perspective? Would that – as someone said – have been something that would win us back the confidence of the public? What would have been the result of that?
We know perfectly well that failure to complete in good time would have meant that the new Member States would have been unable to claim sufficient money from the Structural and Cohesion Funds, that we would have been unable to put in place the necessary legal bases, and that we would have been unable to run the programmes in the various Member States. It follows, then, that failure on our part, failure to achieve this compromise, would have sent the worst imaginable message about Europe’s capacity to act effectively, and would also have given the public the wrong idea about us. It is clear, then, that, when we are dealing with something as complex as a seven-year financial perspective or an interinstitutional agreement that has to be negotiated by the three institutions that are vital to Europe – Parliament, the Commission and the Council – no one party’s position must be allowed to prevail, but we can all send out a message. Together, we have found the best possible solution for Europe, and that was what we were tasked to do.
To all those who said that we should improve control, and that there was not enough transparency, I can give the assurance that I really do regard it as vital that we should, over the coming months and years, do everything possible to improve monitoring for the sake of greater transparency. It is vital that our taxpayers, Europe’s citizens, should be able to see that we are careful with money, that we conceal nothing and that we are trying to prevent abuses. This is our unconditional commitment to them that the Council, too, wants to improve monitoring.
So let me once again extend the warmest of thanks to your House's negotiating team and to the Commissioner and her own team, while also asking you to give your approval to this compromise."@en1
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