Mr President, Commissioner, representatives of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, in my capacity as budgetary spokesman for the Group of the European People’s Party , I would like to congratulate the various rapporteurs involved in the budgetary procedure for 2004, as well as the Commissioner, Mrs Schreyer, and her services, for their great cooperation, and also Mr Magri, who, as has already been said, has done a great bridging job within the Council – an always difficult Council – in order to be able to achieve this draft budget. I would also like to congratulate the chairman of our Committee on Budgets, Mr Wynn – who will speak after me – with whom we have enjoyed five unforgettable years during which he has demonstrated his great political skill and above all his great human qualities. I would also like to acknowledge the work of the general rapporteur, Mr Mulder, both because, as coordinator of my group, I have closely followed his work, and also because I am going to have to follow in his footsteps as rapporteur for 2005 and I would sincerely like to reach December 2004 with the same sense of a job well done that Mr Mulder must be feeling right now. I know that I have a difficult job ahead, as he has mentioned previously, but that is what Parliament's work is all about. Our group agrees with the whole of the draft budget presented and we are going to renounce any separate vote. We are doing this for two reasons: firstly, because Mr Mulder’s draft budget is balanced, as a result of negotiation, and takes up the essential elements of the positions of the political groups and because, furthermore, my group offered him support at the beginning of the procedure and now we want to demonstrate it; and secondly because we want to send a message of unity from this Parliament to a Council of Ministers which is prepared to unilaterally reduce the budgetary powers of this House, as laid down in the text of the Convention, which has yet to be approved. The draft budget for 2004 fully responds to the most significant concerns of our political group. These include the maintenance of a level of payments compatible with the needs of enlargement and with the absorption of the RALs. All of this must be undertaken while applying the necessary austerity in the total growth in spending. Furthermore, the draft responds to the need for greater parliamentary control of specialised agencies and, furthermore, the amount for the financial packages intended for programmes subject to codecision until 2006 is guaranteed by agreement amongst the institutions. This draft budget also responds to Parliament’s promise to contribute actively to the reconstruction of Iraq without prejudice to the geographical lines, which are the traditional priority of all the political groups. The Council has finally agreed to the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument: for much less than Parliament requested, it is true, but it is also the case that it is much more than the Council wanted to mobilise, which was zero. Furthermore, it maintains its pressure in relation to the reform of the Commission by means of this compromise amongst the political groups, which gives the Commission the 272 posts requested in order to carry out enlargement, but which keeps a certain quantity in reserve until this House receives the information it has requested on the development of human resources. Our task is now going to be to involve Parliament more and more in the legislative and budgetary procedures. We want the Commission’s annual strategy to be discussed here with sufficient time for the preliminary draft to take up and respond to our budgetary guidelines. Let us remember that the Union’s budget is more than an accounting exercise in balancing spending and income: it is the political expression of a desire to create more Europe by means of Community programmes. This is going to require of us authority and efficiency in spending, but let us not forget that now and forever, and, above all from next May, it is also going to require great generosity.

Political group: PPE-DE