Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am the rapporteur for the so-called remaining sections of the Budget. This subject matter will seem somewhat dry after the eloquent presentation delivered by the Chairman of our Committee on Budgets. I believe that whilst the small budgets may not be quite as fascinating in terms of policy areas, they are not without interest when it comes to the question as to how organisational and staffing resources can be used to guarantee the effectiveness of the institutions of the European Union. I have a few comments to make on the Council’s first reading in this respect, which I have already submitted to the Committee on Budgets in the form of a discussion paper. I will start with the European Court of Justice. The Council has recognised the difficult situation facing the Court in relation to the translations backlog, and has proposed that 47 new posts be created. At the same time, however, the across-the-board cut was increased from 2.5% to 5.1%, which means that these newly created posts cannot be filled. I believe this is a contradiction-in-terms which has still to be resolved. As rapporteur, I will duly prepare proposals to this end. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that the funding for the freelance translator reserves, which we need so badly in order to clear the backlog, have also been cut. In other words, for all the Council may have recognised the problem, this is not reflected in the budget in concrete figures. I have taken a very detailed look at the promotion systems of all the institutions, and I have noticed that the Court of Justice has now followed suit and established a promotion model based on demonstrable merit. Switching over to a new system at the European Court of Justice will necessitate creating a large number of higher grades, which is something we have no hope of achieving within a year. However, we must tackle this over the next few years. This is another issue that the Council failed to take into account at first reading. Turning now to the European Court of Auditors. The only question that remains to be answered here, relates to the financing of the Court of Auditor’s new building in Luxembourg. For reasons that are beyond me, the Council has cut the funding for 2001 from EUR 7 million to EUR 5 million. During discussions at the Court of Auditors, I was assured that the total cost requirement of EUR 25 million at 1998 prices will not be exceeded. I therefore think it would be of more benefit to the European tax payer if the payments were to be made once the respective invoices have been received. I will propose to the Committee on Budgets that we redeploy the Court of Auditors’ proposal. I shall now move on to the Economic and Social Committee. My guiding principle for the budgetary procedure for 2001 can be summed up by the following new High German expression: value for money. Needless to say, the same holds true for the Economic and Social Committee. The ECSC’s working method and public image are extremely dubious. Hence my proposals are geared towards raising the productivity of the Economic and Social Committee. In particular, the promotion policy of the Economic and Social Committee requires careful scrutiny. I hope that, as budgetary authorities, we will be able to put our heads together and come up with ideas that will lend the necessary weight to the ECSC’s endeavours in this field. We should also reflect on the role of the Secretariat of the Economic and Social Committee. The ECSC currently derives all its expertise from outside experts. However, I ask myself whether that should be the aim of such an institution’s work. That is something else we need to discuss. The same applies to the Committee of the Regions. Here too it is my goal, under the ‘value for money’ maxim, to promote the overall productivity of the committee through a variety of measures. I am only able to mention one interesting aspect. The committee has asked for an increase in the funding required to cover the travel and subsistence costs incurred by regional representatives of candidate countries attending plenary sittings as observers. We have placed part of this money for the financial year 2000 in reserve. To date, there has been no application for us to release these funds. At the same time, however, the Committee of the Regions has declared that it has need of more funds for the year 2001. My response will be to propose that these funds should also be placed in reserve, because the need for funding allocations is evidently by no means as pressing as we are always given to believe during budgetary negotiations. I only have a very brief comment to make in respect of the Ombudsman. There is not a great deal to add here. The Council has grasped the nettle and we support them in this. I will not submit any further proposals on this matter. To sum up: overall, we are being very sparing with the European tax payer’s money in performing our role as part of the budgetary authority. It is imperative that we take the same line for the administrative budget. There are major tasks in store for us over the next few years. We are in a position to create financial leeway for 2001, which we will hopefully be able to turn to good account when it comes to dealing with the administrative side of enlargement. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE