general rapporteur. – Mr President, before we begin the vote on the budget and the budgetary amendments, there are some statements I would like to make, some corrections and oral amendments that I would like put to the vote. Firstly, I would like to inform colleagues in the Chamber that we have a very tight margin in category 3, for internal policies. It is only EUR 2.6 million. If, as a result of the vote, we pass the ceiling, I would feel obliged to propose offsets and further reductions on other budget lines. That is just a little warning. Then there are some technical corrections. First of all, amendment 662 on budget line B53004 (new) should not be subject to a separate vote because nobody has requested that. It has been listed as a separate vote by mistake. It should instead be voted on as part of block 4. I will check this with all the political groups but, as I understand it, there is no problem. We also have a technical adjustment in heading 5. The amendments proposed reflect the announcement by Eurostat on 15 October. We have new parameters for salaries in 2003. The 2.6% increase has now been reduced to 2%. The resulting adjustments to match the front loading in 2002 need to be made. I will quickly read the figures for the record. In Amendment 525, the final amount should be EUR 1 450 901 000 and nothing else. In Amendment 556,the final amount is EUR 68 890 436. In Amendment 650 on budget line A360, the final amount should read EUR 38 219 720. Then we have two new amendments, because we had no amendments on pensions. These are on budget line A1900, where the final amount should read EUR 412 887 000, and on budget line A6000, where the final amount should read EUR 124 456 000. In Amendment 562 on budget line A7000, the final amount should read EUR 54 916 000. Finally, in Amendment 527 on budget line A200, the final amount should be EUR 147 529 904. We also have some technical corrections on agencies. There is a separate remark for the agency enlargement costs. They have now been slightly amended and should read as follows: for Amendment 583 on budget line B3-4201, the correct amount is EUR 7 150 000. For Amendment 589, budget line B5-3111, the correct amount is EUR 300 000. For Amendment 596, budget line B5-8301, the final amount is EUR 3 522 711. Finally, we do not need a figure for Amendment 593, because it has been withdrawn. There is no enlargement cost in that case. There is one item which has to be voted on and that is budget line A-3014, one of the A-30 lines about European masters' courses in human rights and democratisation. The reference here to the University of Padua is not correct. It should be replaced by the European Inter-University Centre. That is actually a new amendment to the draft budget and should be voted on at the beginning. I would also like to tell the House that, in order to be consistent with the resolution, I will ask the sessional services to replace the second part of the first paragraph of the grounds for Amendment 644 on Afghanistan by paragraph 26 in the resolution, so that there is no difference between the wording of the resolution and the amendment. I do not think that requires a vote, but I just wanted to point it out to the House. Finally, a politically more important point, because it concerns North Korea and the discussions we have had on KEDO and nuclear issues. Following the recent information on the declaration by the North Korean Government on the possible production of nuclear weapons, the Committee on Budgets, at its meeting this Monday, authorised me to table an oral amendment in plenary. This proposes that the EU's total contribution to KEDO, which is EUR 20 million, be entered in the reserve, on the grounds that the North Korean Government has admitted it is working on the research and production of nuclear weapons. This is clearly at odds with the general objectives of EU participation in the Euratom-Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation KEDO, which are 'to contribute to reinforcing and maintaining the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and to help achieve appropriate cooperation with both North Korea and South Korea to ensure the safe and peaceful use of nuclear energy'. The appropriations will be released from this reserve on the condition that, firstly, North Korea proves itself willing to respect the international non-proliferation regime and, secondly, that North Korea proves it has discontinued its nuclear weapons production programme. This is also a new amendment to the draft budget and must, preferably, be voted on at the beginning. Finally, when we come to category 4, I shall comment on two specific aspects of that category, but that is all I wish to say at this point. (In successive votes, Parliament accepted the oral amendments)

Political group: PSE