Mr President, firstly my sincere thanks and congratulations go to Mr Costa Neves, Mrs Buitenweg and Mr Seppänen for their excellent work. At the same time I wish to thank Terence Wynn, as chairman of the Committee on Budgets, who has proved a competent leader in the work of the current year. The job of general rapporteur is a tough and demanding one, but Mr Costa Neves has managed well and my group supports his policy on the Commission’s budget. The budget’s general lines include cancelling the cut in agricultural expenditure, attending to arrears in payments, and the Commission’s reform. The strengthening of the policy on the northern dimension in the budget’s explanatory statement may also be regarded as a positive move. The handling of the budget is based very much on last year’s financial statements, which showed a surplus of EUR 11 billion. Expenditure was EUR 8.5 billion less than anticipated and EUR 6.5 billion of the Structural Funds remained unspent. For that reason, we now have to pay special attention to improving administration and not producing such large estimates for expenditure. Otherwise, the bottom will fall out of budget policy altogether. One particular focus in the budget is the reduction in payment arrears. At present they stand at more than EUR 60 billion. My group supports this goal. It also supports the reform of the Commission, which is one of Parliament’s most urgent priorities. It will increase efficiency and the importance of personal responsibility. It is being proposed that a part of the appropriations should be placed in a reserve, so that the Commission may quickly propose a reform of its staff regulations and clarify its ideas on the early retirement scheme. Heading 4 is difficult. The Commission and the Council are proposing EUR 125 million for the Moroccan fishing agreement, although this agreement is not forthcoming. This is clearly a matter of a concealed reserve which, indeed, contravenes the Financial Regulation. It must be dissolved. As a counterweight, it is being proposed that a flexible instrument should be used to modernise the Spanish and Portuguese fishing fleets. This could be partly acceptable. On the other hand, our group cannot accept the cut of EUR 84 million in the CARDS Programme. We, as liberals, like participating in joint agreements to carry through the budget in Parliament, but we cannot be party to this idea. The CARDS Programme has been an undisputed priority with Parliament, and, for that reason, we are hoping for similar cuts in the budget for other programmes where payment appropriations have not been used to the extent they might have been in any case. Of the small programmes, the most considerable is the A-30 appropriations, which are earmarked as assistance to organisations. These appropriations take up a totally unreasonable amount of Parliament’s time in relation to their importance. For that reason, the whole system should be clarified. In addition, the way the organisations are selected is very rarely based on objective criteria. We particularly support Mrs Buitenweg’s recommendations concerning discipline in Parliament’s budget, as mentioned in her report. They remain beneath the ceiling we, ourselves, set, that is to say 20% of all administrative costs, even though it includes the costs relating to enlargement. The question of eastward enlargement itself is one that must be dealt with in such a way that Parliament’s work is not made any harder and that in the future we may congregate in our own united assembly.

Political group: ELDR