Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-12-13-Speech-2-052"
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"en.20051213.6.2-052"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this week the European Parliament will adopt the European Union’s budget for 2006 at the second and final reading. This will conclude the European Union’s budget procedure for 2006 and the existing Financial Perspective.
I am pleased that after lengthy debates with the European Council it has been possible to reach a compromise. This was also important because the 2006 budget serves as a point of reference in taking decisions on the next Financial Perspective, that for 2007–2013. I hope that this week the Member States’ governments at the European Council will also be able to agree on the Council’s position with regard to the Financial Perspective. I call on the European Council, when debating this issue, also to take into account the opinion and ideas expressed in the European Parliament’s resolution.
The main priorities of the 2006 budget for the other EU institutions are enlargement and the effective and highly targeted use of EU budget resources. The first priority is connected with the successful completion of the 2004 round of enlargement, as well as preparations for the next round of enlargement, when Bulgaria and Romania will join. Unfortunately, once again it is necessary to point out that, although more than a year has passed since EU enlargement, many permanent staff posts set aside for the new Member States still remain vacant. One of the problems to be emphasised in this connection is the excessive red-tape and slow procedures for taking on staff. In accordance with the decision taken at first reading, the proposal at second reading is again to support all the permanent staff posts requested by the other institutions in connection with enlargement, and also other additional expenditure connected with enlargement, in order to ensure the success of the next round of EU enlargement.
The second priority is effective and highly targeted use of EU budget resources. This priority encompasses such matters as: focusing EU institutional expenditure on fundamental tasks; giving support to new budget requests and permanent staff posts requests only after having assessed the possibility of redistributing resources and staff within the framework of the existing budget; giving support to new initiatives only after having assessed their impact on the budget and interinstitutional cooperation with a view to economical and effective use of budget resources. Both institutions with budgetary decision-making powers – the European Parliament and the Council – endorse the principles of budgetary discipline and the rational use of EU taxpayers’ money. At second reading the European Council proposed reverting to its initial position and reducing the administrative expenditure of the other institutions by 15 million euro as compared with the institutions’ original requests. It must be said that in many cases this reduction was implemented in an ill-considered manner, without thorough examination of the specific nature and problems of the institutions’ work. Nonetheless, during the conciliation meeting a compromise was reached whereby the European Council will not object to the amount of expenditure by the other institutions set by the European Parliament at first reading. Therefore, the proposal at the European Parliament’s second reading is to retain the amount of expenditure fixed at the European Parliament’s first reading, restoring part of the reductions in expenditure made by the European Council – in total by 7.5 million euro.
To conclude, I should like to return to the issue of the Financial Perspective. During the conciliation meeting on the EU budget for 2006 it could be seen that the European Council and particularly the UK Presidency focused excessively on just a single issue – the minimum possible figure for payment appropriations. It only remains to hope that at this week’s European Council summit the Member States’ governments will be able to deal with EU issues within a wider perspective, and not reduce everything to just one question – the minimum possible figure for payment appropriations. Particularly striking proof of this tendency is provided by the unacceptable proposal by the UK Presidency to find a compromise between the older Member States at the expense of the new Member States, by reducing by 10 per cent the amount of EU funds accessible to the new Member States. We must remember that the Luxembourg Presidency had already proposed a significant reduction in the amount of resources to be directed towards the EU’s regional policy, in comparison with what the European Commission had announced. Fortunately, this proposal by the UK has already been withdrawn. It only remains to hope that the UK Presidency is serious about reaching a compromise this year on the Financial Perspective, and that its next proposal will be an improvement."@en1
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