Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-10-23-Speech-2-016-000"
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"en.20121023.4.2-016-000"2
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"Mr President, thank you for your kind words about our delegation.
That is why, and I must be clear on this, the European Parliament will not give its agreement on the multiannual framework if it does not have a guarantee that all funds that may be created to strengthen European solidarity are integrated in the EU budgetary procedure. That is the basic principle of budgetary unity.
There may be annexed budgets, annexed tables. There may be special funding for certain policies. What we cannot accept, however, is for the European budget to be frozen in time, like some sort of historical monument, at the symbolic figure of 1 %, and for all of the funds that are needed for new requirements to come from intergovernmental sources, avoiding any form of appropriate parliamentary control.
President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, in addition to what our rapporteurs have said, I would like to highlight two crucial points for Parliament.
First of all, as far as Parliament is concerned, there can be no agreement on the multiannual financial framework without a political agreement on resources reform: an agreement on the principle of this reform, on the adjustments to the correction mechanisms, on the new own resources and on the calendar for implementation.
Everyone agrees. No democrat can continue to defend the European budget’s current financing system. The rebates that certain countries receive are not just. They simply reflect old balances of power. The annual decision-making procedure is devoid of any political debate and any parliamentary control. None of us here today, irrespective of the institution to which we belong, can explain to the voters how their national contribution is calculated.
Eighteen months ago, the mere mention of this topic was seen as utopian. Today, the burden of proof lies with those who defend the
. We must thank the Commission and the Cypriot Presidency for that. Unfortunately, the real negotiations on the substance of the reform have not really begun. There is still a huge amount of work to be done to reach a global agreement on the multiannual framework in a month. That is a key point for Parliament.
The second key point that I will mention is the preservation of budgetary unity. Last week’s European Council gave President Van Rompuy a mandate to develop the idea of – and I quote – ‘a fiscal capacity’ for the euro area at the December European Council. It stated that it would not be tied in any way to the negotiations on the EU budget.
I have to say this: for us, this issue completely overlaps today’s negotiations as we are talking about exactly the same thing. We are talking about the same thing when it comes to spending. According to those who promote this idea, we would give additional assistance to the Member States that are applying tough fiscal consolidation measures. Excellent. We can reinvent the Cohesion Fund or the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund.
We are talking about the same thing when it comes to revenue. If the revenue from this new fund comes from national contributions, then the countries that finance the fund would clearly use it as a pretext to freeze or even reduce their current contribution to the EU budget. If we think about the own resources that would be directly involved, again they will come from our EU budget.
Finally, we are talking about the same thing when it comes to the calendar. We are told: ‘it is an idea for the future, do not worry’. Of course, it will not apply on 1 January 2013, but I imagine that in the midst of the debt crisis, the European Council is not dropping everything to meet in order to take decisions that would apply after 2020, in other words, that would be applied by our successors’ successors. We are thus talking about the same calendar."@en1
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