Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-03-Speech-2-181"
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"Mr President, thank you ladies and gentlemen and, especially, a big thank-you to the Danish Presidency. Just as Mr Wynn said, we really appreciated the constructive attitude we encountered at the July conciliation when, for the first time in many years, we in actual fact produced an agreement of genuine substance.
Why, then, did we come to this agreement where category 5 is concerned? Mr Wynn touched upon this. We were subjected to strong pressure from the Member States and the Council and finally decided to agree to the flexibility instrument’s not being used. There was one further reason, however, for we believe we must make the fullest possible use of all the available means for rationalising and prioritising what we do, moving resources about, increasing efficiency and creating modern management in the European Union too. We must use the opportunities to the full, especially when we face so incredibly important a task as enlargement.
I nonetheless share the Commission’s view when it comes to a rather longer perspective. It would be difficult in the long term to impose a lot of major new tasks upon the Commission without also providing the necessary resources in terms of staff and administrative resources. This will probably become a source of conflict in the future, but I believe it was necessary this year to do things in the way we have.
How does the general budget situation look prior to the autumn budget procedure? Above all, we must discuss what Parliament has been calling attention to for quite a few years, namely the poor implementation in many areas. Every year, the budget allocates major resources which are subsequently not used. Mr Haarder drew attention to this July’s agreement to the effect that we must not increase the payments more than is necessary, and he even wants us to leave margins. The problem, however, is that, through the commitments made in the budget, we have also decided upon a certain level of ambition to which we must try to rise. That must also be a goal for the Member States and the Council. The finance ministers cannot just sit and applaud when they are given back money that has not been used. We have a political responsibility actually to realise the ambitions and implement the programmes we have decided upon in the European Union. That is why Parliament repeatedly increases the payments. We wish to signal that more must be done, and we must invest greater resources in order actually to fulfil the promises made.
I believe that we shall be conducting a debate along these lines in Parliament this year too. It is not, however, certain that it is enough just to increase the payments, and we have had certain examples of its not being so. Sometimes, increased payments do not after all lead to the Commission’s being able to use those resources. As I have already mentioned, we must therefore discuss the Commission’s staff resources in a slightly longer term perspective. We must also perhaps begin to discuss cutting back on our commitments. In certain areas, where we see the Commission not at all implementing what we have demanded, we must perhaps even begin to discuss whether we should cut down on staff or, at least, hold them in reserve. In the long run, staff resources intended for commitments of a certain level cannot be maintained when such commitments are not being met.
This problem of payments and implementation also looms very large when it comes to foreign policy and aid policy. Year after year, we have seen how the Council has acquired more ambitions. In 2000, Kosovo was added to the list, and there was subsequently a slight loss of interest in fulfilling the earlier promises concerning Africa and Latin America. In 2001, Serbia was the new concern, whereupon there was slightly less interest in the former priorities. New concerns for 2002 included the Global Health Fund. This year, we are discussing Afghanistan, the Middle East and the police force for Bosnia.
In fact, we cannot add new tasks every year and simply forget the old ones. There is a limit beyond which further resources must be provided if all our priorities are to be met. This year, we shall have a lot of difficulty meeting our priorities where the Global Health Fund is concerned. There are already huge cut-backs in the budget in connection with Kosovo, humanitarian aid etc. That is unsustainable in the long term. If new priorities are to be added each year, further resources must also be provided.
Allow me finally to say a few words about simplification. We have studied Structural Funds and a series of different political programmes. I have travelled around – most recently in Finland, for example – and learned that regional organisations and universities etc are giving up applying for funds from the EU budget because the process is so terribly involved. That, I believe, is one reason why EU money is not in actual fact being spent. It is time to take this state of affairs seriously. Within the EU, we must sit down and go through our methods, documents and bureaucracy so that the process is made a little simpler for all those who need to use EU resources.
Mr President, I believe these are some of the most important aspects we shall be continuing to discuss in Parliament, in the Committee on Budgets and in future budget debates."@en1
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