Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-07-05-Speech-2-614-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20110705.37.2-614-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, on behalf of the Commission, I should like to thank the honourable Members for their comments. Today’s debate has once more demonstrated that the European Parliament is a good place to discuss serious European matters from the European perspective – a truly European perspective – and this is a fundamental debate because the budget is a vision in figures. Without figures it could just be about empty declarations.
Given the context of today’s Europe, the strategic choice of the Commission and the puzzle to be solved was how to respond to more Europe – the Treaty of Lisbon is about more Europe – with more or less the same amount of money to defend a real constant volume, to be taken seriously, and to put on the table a proposal which is taken as a solid basis for negotiations with both the Council and Parliament.
I would like to say to Mr Callanan, Ms Andreasen, Mr Hartong, Mr Brons, Mr Ashworth – already missing – and also Ms Dodds, all of them from countries whose national budgets are growing this year, and where projects for the next year are also growing – that the multiannual financial perspective is about the ceilings, limits on expenditure. This is the essence of a multiannual perspective. We are of course placing some reserves, some potential expenditure, outside because this is about reserves and flexibility. It is wise to be ready in case, and this is that section of the budget.
It should be acknowledged that apart from the positive priorities in this budget – positives are increasing research to EUR 80 billion, external relations increasing to EUR 70 billion – this time we had an exercise in negative priorities, including major efforts to restrain administrative costs. It should also be acknowledged that so-called traditional policies are being modernised, as seen in the greening of direct payments, conditionality in cohesion, the shift towards the poor in cohesion, but also a convergence, a delicate convergence of direct payments done in such a way that we could afford increases of more than 50% for those with the lowest direct payments, but the most extreme cost for those who are financing this increase is only 7%.
Now turning to Lásló Surján: with our proposal the four poorest countries in Europe should have transfers from the European budget of up to 4 % of GDP. This is quite a lot. I would say that this is the limit of what we can afford.
Turning to Mr La Via and Ms Manner, who are worried about Greek agriculture: yes, this is communal policy, therefore we have more communal responsibility for the farmers, but you could also detect in this proposal that we now have now proposed to cover, via the Globalisation Fund, the risk for the farmers. There is a special crisis reserve, various positions on deprived persons, so there are some safeguards indicating that we are conscious of a communal, federal responsibility for farming in Europe.
On own resources, Mr Eppink warned us that this is a non-starter but this is already flying. This is the conclusion of the European Council. This is in the Parliament resolution. This is supported by more than 60 % of the European population and versions of this sort of tax are imposed in Great Britain. And I believe there are still some financial services in the City despite that sort of stamp tax and taxation on derivatives.
Salvador Garriga Polledo said that the proposal was born in a climate of cooperation. Let us preserve the climate of cooperation, aiming at an agreement that could be equal to financial peace for Europe for seven years. This is a gift. This is a value in itself in our turbulent times."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples