Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-12-Speech-2-023"
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the budget process looks a bit different this year than previously. We are on the way towards an activity-based budget. Of course, we hope that, in the long term, this will lead to simplification and increased clarity, although this year we will be working with the old and the new methods in parallel.
Great emphasis will also be placed on the Union’s role in terms of foreign policy and aid policy. Where these are concerned, we are this year in danger of further exacerbating the problem which dominated the debate last year, that is to say the fact that, on top of our traditional priorities, we constantly heap new tasks such as those involving the Balkans, Afghanistan, the Global Health Fund and the common foreign and security policy. In the end, it will become impossible to constantly squeeze in new tasks under the same budget ceilings, especially as the old tasks are often linked to practical undertakings involving recipients in other parts of the world.
Even though we have not adopted a position on the Commission’s proposal for a new flexibility instrument, it is quite clear that we welcome debate on this instrument or, alternatively, debate on a more planned use of the emergency reserve
I would also like to mention a couple of different areas where we are adopting a very aggressive approach. Regarding heading 3 – internal expenditure – there is now the opportunity, in the wake of the Barcelona process, to make considerably more active use of funds for trans-European networks, for the development of small enterprises, etc. I believe this is vital. We are also attempting to press for a situation in which the review of agricultural policy, the midterm review
really does lead to actual change.
To conclude, I would like to thank my co-rapporteur, Mr Stenmarck. There is an unusually large number of Nordic rapporteurs this year, and the budget will also undergo its final reading during the Danish Presidency. In that spirit, I would like to remind you of what the then Chairman of the Court of Auditors, Mr Karlsson, said in his last speech before retiring. He said that the most important thing you can do with the EU budget is to make it simpler, more direct and clearer in the eyes of the people. I hope we are able to take these words to heart.
Another new feature is that all three institutions are producing political budget guidelines at roughly the same time. The Commission now produces an annual policy statement, and the Council makes decisions on guidelines. In my view, this should mean that we will obtain a better political dialogue on the priorities and that the Commission’s preliminary draft budget can be based on deliberations by all three institutions, not just those of the Commission itself. This should naturally lead to a better budget process and to simplification.
The greatest difference as far as the European Parliament is concerned is perhaps the increased emphasis now being placed on follow-up and implementation, for we cannot merely be content to pass decisions on a mass of figures in the budget which then just remain on paper. As a Parliament, we must also make sure that our ambitions and priorities are being realised.
The wording of the guidelines which the committee is now submitting to the European Parliament is more precise in many cases than before. This applies to statements on the importance of ensuring that the budget is followed, as well as to decisions of the European Parliament or budgetary authority. It applies to the actual amounts involved, as well as to budgetary remarks, etc. However, on a number of occasions, the Committee on Budgets has had to point out that a number of remarks which the European Parliament made in various contexts did not, however, lead to the Commission’s actually acting in accordance with the decisions made.
On a number of occasions, we have also pointed out the importance of the amounts in the budget actually taking effect. Naturally, it is worrying when, year after year, the budget produces large surpluses which have to be paid back to the Member States because important work is not carried out. This is particularly serious in terms of areas to which political priority is given, such as regional policy assistance under the Structural Funds or aid to prioritised recipients in other parts of the world. We have already been warned that it will be proposed that the Member States receive early repayment of EUR 10 billion from the 2001 surplus. This is a tenth of the entire budget. This surplus arose primarily because the Structural Funds did not manage to implement their programmes. In our opinion, this must lead to greatly increased pressure on both the Commission and the Member States to take the problem of implementation seriously. In reality, this has to do with confidence in the EU as an institution. This has led to our attempting to introduce a somewhat different budget process. We are attempting to bring the committees on board in a quite different way than before, for example by means of hearings involving Commissioners and through each committee’s checking its part of the budget and seeing how it is implemented. This will ensure that the entire European Parliament is involved in the budget process more actively than before.
The budget debate will also be a little different. During the July session we shall have a debate which will largely be to do with implementation but which will take place at the same time as the debate on the mandate for the conciliation negotiations on the Council’s first reading.
In the Committee on Budgets we had a great many amendments, 129 to be precise. Here in the plenary sitting, the number has been considerably reduced, and the reason for this is of course that we have been able to compromise on a consensus approach towards the most important priorities.
We are entirely agreed that the most important political priority is EU enlargement. For us, this means, in more concrete terms, the preparations we must now make if it is to be possible for this historic task to be carried out. Enlargement itself creates no problems for the 2003 budget, but we are still affected in various ways. We must begin the debate on the long-term effects of enlargement, and the European Parliament wants to be involved in this debate. The agreements now being made in negotiations with the Member States will affect the budget for a long time into the future. This is therefore a very important concern for the European Parliament too. We must also set in motion a debate on the principles of how we are to prepare for accession. This will apply to pre-accession aid under heading 7 and to our own costs in terms of administrative expenditure for preparing for the interpretation, translation, buildings and premises required because of enlargement.
The urgent, and largest, problem is of course the administrative expenditure under heading 5. If nothing radical is done, we run the risk of hitting the budget ceiling as early as 2003 as well as a major risk of considerably exceeding the ceiling in 2004. We are therefore attempting to put pressure on the Secretaries-General of our institutions so that they really come up with practical proposals for co-operation and savings. If this does not succeed, we will have a discussion on either painful reprioritisations or the injection of completely new funds. I am convinced that no one in this Parliament wishes to jeopardise the enlargement timetable for reasons of this kind. Changes such as increased co-operation and rationalisation are, moreover, completely in line with the ideas for which we ourselves press when it comes to reforming the institutions of the Union, reforming the Commission, etc."@en1
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