Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-10-19-Speech-2-387"
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"en.20101019.21.2-387"2
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"Madam President, I would just like to say that I think the Commission has produced a good document, except that it is 15 months too late.
Otherwise, the fact that the mid-term review should have been done 15 months ago is a small detail, and therefore it does not need to be mentioned again. Indeed, whenever there are negotiations, they sell us a mid-term review, which comes at the end of the term. This is unacceptable and must not happen in future.
Secondly, the vital point of this text concerns own resources. Why? For that is the basis of the European Union. The founding fathers of the EU created a European Union based on own resources, that is to say, on tariffs, taxes on imported agricultural products and VAT. That is what happened. National contributions started because of the British rebate. That is the reality. We must therefore return to these own resources as the basis of financing. We must do so now because that is the only chance we have to take Europe forward. We must also do so for democratic reasons.
In a democracy, one thing is necessary: that the people pay their individual revenue directly to Europe and that they can therefore contribute and control the functioning of the European Union through those resources.
My second point, Madam President, in fact concerns the things that are being said here: that we must reduce the EU budget and contributions at European level in order to improve public finances – that is hogwash. The reality is that fiscal deficits – budget deficits in Europe – have now reached EUR 868 billion, or 7% of the European Union’s GDP. Even if we pursue the idea of curbing spending at European level and freezing the European budget completely, those EUR 868 billion would be reduced to EUR 860 billion. That, in fact, is the reality. The opposite should actually be done: transfer responsibilities from national to European level so as to reduce costs for Member States.
Defence, research, diplomacy, infrastructure – these are areas in which the European Union can perform better and which can help reduce budget deficits. So this is the approach you must now take with your colleagues, President of the Council: progress must be made on the matter of own resources because otherwise, you will not have an agreement for the 2011 budget."@en1
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