Mr President, I should like to repeat what I said on a previous occasion. One of the main objectives of the 2004 budget will be the smoothest possible integration of the new Member States. We shall therefore be spending the whole year working on a budget for probably 25 Member States and on this basis we shall be taking a political decision in December. In this report we speak of the position that Parliament must take in the conciliation procedure and a number of main subjects traditionally have a part to play in first reading conciliation. First of all we have agriculture. The margin of 1.4 billion currently calculated is positive, but all the items in the agriculture budget are based on a dollar-euro rate of 1.07. This is probably on the low side and so we are also looking to the letter of amendment at the end of October, which will also contain the conclusions of the agricultural negotiations in Luxembourg. What are the financial consequences of this rate? Apart from this point, Parliament has set a number of priorities for the agriculture budget in the form of pilot projects or preparatory actions. In the first place we think that, given the number of outbreaks of infectious animal diseases in the last ten years, there is a great burden on the agriculture budget. In future the agriculture budget will not have the margins that it has had in the past. We therefore think that very serious thought must be given to some form or other of insurance system against infectious animal diseases and some or other European animal disease fund will have to be created. We want to make a start on this. Secondly, future payments to farmers will be based not only on historical actions, but also on the environment, method, on cross-compliance: one good turn deserves another. All well and good, but these environmental indicators are not all that precise. Mrs Wallström has unfortunately disappeared, but there is much to say about the nitrate directive. Something has to be done about that. Other points that we consider important are the development of better vaccines against infectious animal diseases and a quality policy for agricultural products. As for fisheries, the most important point is that the Council, which regrettably is very sparingly present this evening, must as soon as possible take a position with regard to the financing of the reforms that were agreed in December of last year, in particular with regard to the scrapping fund that is mentioned therein. We think that in principle credits must be made available for this. Otherwise better control of the quota and more research into fish stocks are the main points for us. Common foreign and security policy. The Council promised to give Parliament information about this policy as of 15 June. This information had not arrived by the time of the printing of this resolution. I understand that it was handed over here just an hour ago. We shall be examining it closely. We think that we should be informed about everything, not only about the actions, but also about the budget of the European Parliament, as well as about the budgets of the Member States themselves. Both are communicating vessels and cannot be seen separately from one another. As regards the structural funds, we think that the N+2 rule must be applied. We also think it interesting to hear precisely what the estimates have been that are given to the Commission by the Member States each year so that the Commission can draft a good budget. It is always interesting to make this comparison. We should like to have this information from the Commission. Another important point for this budget: we want to promote economic development in the new Member States. We think that this can for example be done through the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises and through investments in these new Member States. We are therefore expecting good cooperation with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London and with the European Investment Fund in Luxembourg. We shall be raising this as well. I do have a number of other points, Mr President, but since you, given the lateness of the hour, were so insistent that I keep to my time, this I shall do. Perhaps the position of the Parliament will emerge later in the resolution itself.

Political group: ELDR