Mr President, this proposal for a Council decision with a view to extending, for the first time, the Community guarantee for the European Investment Bank undoubtedly has a truly extraordinary scope. Before commenting specifically on the issues raised by this proposal for a decision, I should like to express our support for it, since it endorses Parliament’s position on relations between the European Union and Croatia. For this very reason, I wish to state from the outset that I share the concerns expressed by the rapporteur a few minutes ago on the situation of the loan guarantee reserve, whose narrow margin could cause problems should any unforeseen events occur. There is one decision that must be put in a dual context. We should consider Croatia’s situation firstly from a strictly political point of view. We must welcome the new political direction that is being taken there, following the legislative and presidential elections. The European Union must encourage Croatia to remain firmly grounded in democracy and the rule of law and there is no doubt that this encouragement must be translated into action involving financial support to improve the economic situation there and to enable the Croatian people to make the necessary sacrifices to balance out the fundamental deficits in their public accounts. The EIB can and must play a leading role in the region, but this powerful financial instrument serving the external policy of the Union, whose activities, in accordance with the mandate provided by the 1999 decision, cover more than sixty countries, must match its actions to those of the Commission. It must also be made clear that the Commission cannot distance itself from the recent agreement that was reached in the tripartite dialogue in July, when a commitment was given to the effect that every new proposal’s compatibility with existing financial programming must be substantiated in the financial statement. From the operational point of view, I believe that both the loan guarantee reserve that has been provided for in the current financial perspective, and the functioning of the Guarantee Fund require an improvement in the mechanisms for achieving the objectives of quality and efficiency in Union loans that are given budgetary guarantees. In this sense, the rapporteur’s analysis strikes me as being an admirable starting point. It does not seek to cast doubt on the budgetary protection plan nor on the role of the EIB. The Interinstitutional Agreement provides for a series of three-part dialogues to take place within the budgetary procedure. Given this context and bearing in mind the narrow margin of the loan guarantee reserve, which is set at EUR 200 million per year, there is no reason why we should not discuss the priority uses of this margin in coming years. Our aim is clearly to improve the efficiency of the European Investment Bank. In order to achieve this, the Commission must ensure that the most thorough assessment possible of its activities will be carried out. We cannot content ourselves with saying that we have a reliable system of guarantees. In the budgetary procedure for 2001, our political group has maintained a strategy of pursuing a marked improvement in the quality of expenditure and an improvement in the mechanisms for monitoring its performance. It is time to call for the same objectives with regard to the activities of the EIB. What is clear is that Parliament cannot restrict its role to passively assimilating the information supplied to it by the Commission and the EIB, or to giving its blessing to the decisions of the Council.

Political group: PPE-DE