Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-16-Speech-3-343"
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"en.20010516.12.3-343"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Council has again presented a supplementary budget in order to set the Common Foreign, and Security Policy and defence policy in Europe on a broader basis.
We examined the original draft supplementary budget sent to us by the Council very closely and came to the conclusion that it was not acceptable as it stood and I should like to say why in no uncertain terms: what we need in this important political field is to safeguard the necessary transparency and the necessary controls. The common foreign and security policy of the European Union is one of the core elements in the further development of this European Union.
We cannot withdraw control functions from the national parliaments in this important area without giving them to the European Parliament and we felt that this democratic gap needed to be closed. I should like to say quite clearly that interinstitutional agreements are all well and good, but they are not the right tool for effective control. Nor are the Western European Union and its parliamentary assembly the right tool for effective control. That is why it was clear to us that transparency can only be reasonably guaranteed and this important political field can only be controlled within the framework of the budgetary procedure. That is why I am most grateful to my fellow members for staying the difficult course which we have taken together and seeing the tough negotiations with the Council through to the end and for supporting the line which I, as rapporteur, have taken from the outset.
I should also like to thank the Swedish Presidency of the Council for making it possible to broker a solution now which guarantees the Council's ability to act in the area for which it is responsible under the Treaty and which also guarantees Parliament's right of control. That was the brief which we stood up for and which we negotiated.
We resisted the temptation – and I am most grateful to my fellow members for this – to make a distinction between administrative expenses and operational expenses. That would have been too confusing. You cannot distinguish, post by post, when someone is administering and when they are operationally active. But now that we have succeeded in ensuring that a separate title in the Council budget includes activities in the area of the common foreign and security policy, this distinction – and hence controls – are guaranteed in an optimum manner.
The supplementary budget, in terms of numbers, totals EUR 9.846 million. It makes provision for 51 new posts in this area and for the further technical resources needed in order to refurbish the buildings. I should like to say quite clearly at this point that we shall of course check the Council budget in general and this new title in particular very closely during the course of the 2002 budgetary procedure. We cannot allow the Council to build up powers which the European Union already has, for which provision has been made under the Commission budget, especially in the area of crisis prevention and civil crisis management, as a parallel structure. And, as long as that is not the case, I see no need to recommend that the House reject the Council's supplementary and amending budget.
We shall also ensure in future, as regards heading 5, that the European Union's ability to act is still guaranteed when it comes to administrative expenses. I should like to urge the Council not just to deal with this important area in supplementary budgets, but to include it once and for all in its normal budget, so that we have a reasonable set of figures at our disposal when discussing other areas under heading 5.
My thanks to the honourable members from nearly all the groups for supporting me. However, I must say that I am somewhat disappointed that the Greens have moved to reject the supplementary budget. The chairman of the Committee on Budgets will cast our vote on this motion tomorrow. Until such time as we can prove – and we need ammunition here – that there are twin structures, it makes no sense to reject
something which represents a huge success for the European Parliament and, by extension, for the citizens of Europe."@en1
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