Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-07-Speech-2-177"
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"en.20050607.25.2-177"2
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".
Mr President, I have had the opportunity to observe at close quarters the enormous amount of work Mr Böge has put into this report. It is not his fault that our group will not adopt this report by a provisional committee, but has allied itself to the minority opinion and is, instead, proposing its own resolution.
Parliament’s power relations are such that the committee’s report does not correspond to our group’s opinion of future economic frameworks. We would have liked there to be greater focus on economic, social and environmental issues, the prevention of unemployment and the fight against poverty, and solidarity with the developing countries. We would have liked to see less neoliberalism, less militarisation of the EU, and less harmonisation of laws.
On the one hand it is justifiable to have the decision on future economic guidelines fit in with the Commission’s and Parliament’s terms of office. On the other hand, structural and cohesion funds and agricultural programmes should not be subordinated to mere budgetary frameworks and procedures. While, moreover, the notion of temporal coordination was justified with the provisions of the draft EU constitution, there are no longer any grounds for it. The French and Dutch nations have rendered that neoliberalist and Euro-nationalist project comatose, and now we only need to switch off the life-support machine.
Parliament had no inclination to reach a consensus on how future budgets should be financed. Our group endorses the system of national contributions, and, above all, contributions based on GNP, and we have no sympathy for euro taxation. We want contributions to be charged fairly. That is not how things are at present. Others pay almost EUR 5 billion to cover the United Kingdom’s contributions, and that country’s rebate is unjustified.
The grand total for future expenditure is crucial. On the one side there is the 1% proposed in the letter drafted by six Member States, and, on the other, Member States worried about structural and cohesion funds are demanding that Union’s internal cohesion and convergence are safeguarded. Our group does not share the committee’s view that the grand total for expenditure should be the Commission’s original proposal of something between 1% and 1.14%. We consider the Commission’s proposal to be the bare minimum.
There is a lot of sympathy in our group for those countries that decry the deflationary pressures of the Stability and Growth Pact. Many members of our group are furthermore worried about the impact EU enlargement will have on the budget. It is feared that enlargement will be paid for by the old cohesion countries. Regarding agriculture, not everyone understands why we should be making room in the EU budget for other expenditure with joint financing of agricultural expenditure.
Mr Böge, I am sorry, but just as I was about to speak about the report’s good aspects, my time ran out."@en1
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