Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-02-Speech-1-149"
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"en.20030602.10.1-149"2
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"Mr President, the own-initiative report that Mr Belder has just presented is both exhaustive and forward-looking. It will certainly give the Commission food for thought where macro-financial assistance to third countries is concerned.
We share the view that Mr Belder has just expressed that we are currently suffering from a genuine lack of flexibility and from the fact that all aspects of the decision-making process in the field of macro-financial assistance to third countries are extremely cumbersome. He is right to stress that these cumbersome procedures and this lack of flexibility are due to there being no specific legal base or framework regulation setting out the criteria and conditions for granting macro-financial assistance to third countries and that this gap forces us to have recourse to Article 308 of the Treaty on a case-by-case basis. Clearly this is a serious disadvantage, even if in practice the instrument itself has proved – once the decisions have been taken – to be an effective tool for supporting adjustment and reform in those countries that have benefited from this macro-financial assistance: this is confirmed by the recent Court of Auditors report on macro-financial assistance.
On several occasions we have explored the possibility of putting in place a framework regulation, as the report suggests, which would define the conditions for granting macro-financial assistance and as it were put this instrument on the same footing as other instruments for providing financial assistance to third countries. Unfortunately, so far these attempts have failed because for this type of assistance – no doubt because it also implies having recourse to borrowing and lending – the vast majority of Member States wish to retain a decision-making process that requires unanimity on a case-by-case basis, which all sounds very familiar.
The Commission therefore shares Mr Belder's view on this issue of the legal base. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the Council of Ministers, which, in this case, has the last word. That explains the current situation. We do not think, to be perfectly frank, that it will be possible to bring about any change in the situation before the conclusion of the Convention's work and the next intergovernmental conference. As far as voting by unanimity or by a qualified majority are concerned, our hopes are therefore in the hands of the Members of the Convention, once again.
In the meantime, we will have to continue to manage this instrument, taking into account its inherent constraints, in as flexible a way as possible. To do so we will need Parliament's cooperation: sometimes we feel a little tempted to insist on this absolutely correct legal view and we do not wish this to be to the detriment of this instrument or to complicate it further when we have already said that it is too cumbersome. A difference of opinion over how this macro-financial assistance is decided on – which is certainly justified – should be no reason for us to deprive the partner countries of the benefit of this tool when they need our assistance and are striving to create stability and implement reforms. Its legal base is no good; it is too cumbersome and too complicated, but the aid reaches those for whom it is intended and we would not want these countries, bearing in mind the hopes that they put in the Union's ability to offer them this assistance, to be disappointed by these quarrels, which are admittedly justified, but which are so petty compared with their own hopes.
We are therefore counting on Parliament, in its wisdom, to share this difficulty that we both have to live with, of an instrument that can only evolve if majority voting replaces unanimity in the decision-making process."@en1
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