Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur on this report. I seem to remember saying a few weeks ago that I regretted that would be the last time he spoke as chairman of the Committee on Budgets, and yet he is still here. Who knows what will happen in our new Parliament, assuming of course that we are both re-elected? This debate highlights how the EU institutions seem to rush into debates before fully preparing the ground. In the brief time available, I would like to reflect on the period in which the financial perspective has been in operation. A few of us were Members of this House in the 1980s, when we had turbulent budget debates that were not over-affected by the limits imposed, and then had the financial perspectives from 1988. Since then we have witnessed an enormous rush in European history, from the disintegration of the Soviet Union to German unification, followed by the rush to include countries from central and eastern Europe, which will be complete in a few days time. We have noticed over this period that the financial perspective, as Mr Colom i Naval pointed out in one of his working papers, is indeed somewhat rigid and requires certain changes. Since we are now on the brink of central and eastern enlargement, it seems to me that this period should be one for reflection as we bring in new countries, although possibly not a united Cyprus. It is slightly odd that we have had this debate without the full participation of the representatives of the central and eastern countries, when we realise there are huge problems and challenges concerning the absorption of those countries, as regards not only institutional operation but also policy making. In this debate we are looking ahead to the distant date of 2013, and although useful policy documents exist we have yet to see them. We are therefore right to call for these documents so that we can see exactly what basis has been used to assess how to ensure the European Union will work for 25 countries and how to ensure that Europe will become more competitive, and indeed meet its international obligations – the members of the European Council take decisions on our behalf, but very rarely provide us with the requisite budgetary framework. There are therefore three points which we should include in our message to the incoming parliament and the incoming administration of the European Union. Firstly, there must be a coherent strategy for the European Union in the years ahead so that we know what the Union's priorities are to be, both internally and externally. Secondly, we should avoid trying to stretch the political credibility of the Union too far in taking on ambitions that the institutions themselves are incapable of handling at the present time. I refer in particular to future enlargement for a country like Turkey, as things stand. Lastly, we need a period of consolidation during this financial perspective period, to make the European Union not only an effective operator internally and externally, but also an operator that is seen to be truly democratic and smooth-functioning. If we try to take on too many of the ambitions harboured in certain quarters, our institutions will be incapable of fulfilling them.

Political group: PPE-DE