Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-24-Speech-3-103"
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"en.20020424.5.3-103"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, it is a fact that the beginning of every year, or a day relatively soon after it, finds us facing the same procedure as today's. One could get the impression that, for the Finance Ministers, Easter means great big Easter eggs from Europe, which take the form of returned funds, which of course take some pressure off the national budgets, and on which we in this House have to take decisions at the beginning of each year. As has already been said far more than once, with this Supplementary and Amending Budget we will be talking about EUR 10 billion, and the EUR 2 billion that have as good as been announced are yet to be put in front of us. We must, though, remember that at the end of last year we repaid EUR 1.2 billion, whether on a one-off basis or in anticipation, which means that for this one year we are talking about over EUR 13 billion in unused resources.
In the same way, at the end of every year, when Christmas is approaching, we do not necessarily have Christmas presents for Parliament, and each time we have to fight to raise small amounts that are not allocated to important political tasks. Over the last three years we had Kosovo, where we really had to fight hard to end up with any money at all. This had to do with Serbia, it had to do with aid for fisheries in the southern parts of this EU of ours – in Spain and Portugal – and we even had to dig into our emergency reserves in order to guarantee the continuing reconstruction of the Balkans last year.
Yet today's backflow is not really cause for rejoicing, as it only means that there are resources that have not been utilised. This can mean that the programmes for which they were intended were not there, or that serious work was not done in the Member States, or that the options for giving help to the public have not been sufficiently exhausted. What it does mean in any case is that all of what has been announced must at some point or other be implemented, and every one of today's payment reimbursements is a burden for the future, because, if it is not paid out today, it will be paid out at some point in the future, and so only limited rejoicing is called for. I think that we have to make it clear that this is not really helping.
As long as two years ago, I suggested on one occasion that, instead of letting all the money be returned, we should put some – 10% of the returnable resources, for example – into, as it were, a reserve or emergency fund. That would, for a start, be another way of going about things. Funds would not be constantly moved back and forth, so we would, instead, be able to make rather more reliable plans, and it would also help us to move forward in other areas. Supplementary and Amending Budgets can be talked about and looked at from many different angles, this one being one of them.
We in Parliament intend to amend the Supplementary and Amending Budget in such a way that a substantial amount does not go straight back to the Member States. We have just heard that there are payments that have to be made in many areas, with past commitments having to be met. In the coming days and weeks, we will be intensively seeking discussions with the Council. We will pay precise attention to how amenable to discussions the Council is, and to how openly it deals with us. I do think we can find good solutions to this. We must all be aware that cooperation means that all are ready to talk to each other. That is as much the case as regards the Supplementary and Amending Budget as it is in the Budget procedure. We are ready, but we are also prepared for very intensive discussions with each other and, if need be, for an in-depth exchange of arguments."@en1
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