Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-12-01-Speech-4-087-000"
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"en.20111201.4.4-087-000"2
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"Mr President, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Council Presidency, Mr Lewandowski and, in particular, the two rapporteurs who, together with the Chair of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Lamassoure, have done an excellent job. The tough negotiations that formed part of the conciliation procedure lasted for 17 hours and the European Parliament spent two hours of this in discussions with the Council. Perhaps it would be sensible next time around if the Council did not hold its negotiations during the conciliation procedure, but instead reached a common position first. That would make the job easier for all of us and would extend the Saturday morning slightly.
Nevertheless, we have nominally agreed on a sensible budget. We have accommodated the Council’s requirements. At the Council’s request, the payments were limited to EUR 129 billion and the commitment appropriations were set at EUR 147 billion, which is what Parliament wanted. We should not be under any illusions, however. We are pushing a very dangerous avalanche along. The Council is prepared to finance the commitments that have been entered into by means of supplementary budgets, but I would prefer a commitment to establishing a budget from the beginning with a clear financial basis, so that we do not need constant amending budgets. This simply postpones the problem.
Another problem that has emerged is the fact that the European Union needs more investment in research and development. Everyone, including the Member States, clearly supports this. However, this will not work with a capped budget, unless we are prepared to abandon our dogmatic approach to preserving the status quo and our subsidy mindset. If we do not restructure the budget in favour of research and development and the Europe 2020 strategy, we will not be able to meet these priorities.
At the same time, we have also shown that, at a time when citizens have to tighten their belts, the European Parliament can do the same. I would like to thank Mr Fernandes in particular, who has made an excellent job of initiating this process.
We have achieved a good result and we will be able to vote in favour of this budget. However, we still have to discuss whether this is the right approach in the long term."@en1
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