Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-06-08-Speech-3-014-000"
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"en.20110608.3.3-014-000"2
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"Mr President, my group would like to see European financing that reflects Europe’s new realities, trends and aims. Do the state of the public finances of our Member States, our growth prospects and Europe’s place in the world match the vision of the founding fathers of Europe? Definitely not: they have evolved and changed.
It would be irresponsible if we failed to adjust how Europe is financed to reflect these changes. The Multiannual Financial Framework is a highly political issue that the special committee, working with the Committee on Budgets, has been discussing for over a year. I would like to congratulate the committee on its work. I hope that the European spirit found in the committee will shape the implementation of the framework and take Europe forward for the benefit of our citizens.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) calls on all Member States to participate fully in this debate. When I say fully, I mean not simply announcing that the ultimate aim is to freeze European expenditure to 2020, nor dismissing out of hand the notion of European own resources. We want own resources in order to reduce pressure on national budgets. This is why we are proposing the concept of own resources to the Heads of State or Government: to ease straitened national budgets.
Let me remind you that the European budget has always been balanced, unlike national budgets, which, for the most part, have serious deficits. Let me also remind you that over 90% of that budget is spent on projects that benefit Member States. Lastly, let me remind the Member States that any money which is not spent will be returned to them at the end of the year. Yet we are accused of being poor managers: I think that we need to ramp up our communication efforts. So please, let us stop treating the European budget as a strain on domestic finances.
Let us be honest: one euro spent at European level brings far greater returns than a euro spent by national governments. Between 20 and 30 cents of one euro of national spending are immediately diverted to repay interest on the national debt. Europeans need to be told the truth.
The truth is that without European funding for education and lifelong learning, the brain drain to China and the United States will gain momentum. The truth is that without European funding for research and innovation, our countries would be less competitive globally, while growth and employment would languish. The truth is that without European cohesion funding, the gap between rich and poor regions would widen. The truth is that without European funding, food security policy, energy policy and climate change policy would be unable to match our expectations and aims. Ladies and gentlemen, the truth is that without European funding for foreign and defence policies, the European Union would have remained in the wings instead of at the centre of the world stage.
Of course, money is not the only consideration: how the European Union chooses to invest and to implement political priorities to 2020 and beyond will determine Europe’s capacity for influencing the world. The European Parliament – and for once, the groups that have already spoken are in agreement with me – is therefore calling on the Council to give serious thought to its position on the financial framework.
If the Council is seriously committed to seeing growth and employment pick up, then it needs to use the European budget and Community own resources as a powerful lever. If, like Parliament and the Commission, the Council really wants to give Europe a real chance in the context of globalisation, then it needs to understand that spending wisely is far more useful than limiting spending and that joint funding for joint projects is a more intelligent approach than spreading resources thinly between short-lived projects.
Ladies and gentlemen, this morning, the members of the PPE Group are calling for an ambitious view of Europe. Our fellow citizens share our ambition and hopes. As young people express their anxieties on the streets of Athens and Madrid, as 500 million Europeans are wondering what their future holds, it is time to ask the right questions and to come up with responses to the issues that we face."@en1
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