Mr President, Commissioner Vitorino, the DAPHNE Programme – as we will all well recall – was brought into being in response to the results of the Peking Platform for Action, in the aftermath of the Stockholm world congress on the sexual exploitation of children for commercial purposes and, finally, following the horrors of the Dutroux affair, which gave the European public a rude awakening. The initiative was aimed at funding measures to combat violence against children, young people, and women in Europe, and its great success led to the DAPHNE I Programme, which will now keep on running right up to 2003. A four-year programme, it was funded to the tune of EUR 20 million. My report is concerned with the Commission’s proposal for the DAPHNE II Programme, which is to run from 2004 to 2008. Within the programme’s framework, measures can now be promoted to protect the three groups that will benefit – children, young people, and women – as can the relevant preventive measures. These include the establishment of networks for NGOs across Europe, support for collaboration between NGOs and authorities in the same field, measures to protect the target groups and to prevent violence against those belonging to them, studies, research work aimed at discovering the causes of violence, at preventing it, and at the support of groups at risk and their reintegration into society. This includes the sharing of good practice and of information, as well as awareness programmes for the general public, for the victims, the groups at risk and for those who work with them. Participation in the DAPHNE I Programme was open to the central and eastern European countries, as well as to Cyprus, Malta, Turkey and the countries belonging to EFTA and the European Economic Area, and there was the possibility of multiannual programmes. Amendment No 11 is now aimed at linking DAPHNE with other Community programmes and sharing the experience of them with third states. The DAPHNE Programme, which supports these projects, is now regarded, both in Europe and far beyond its borders, as exemplary and as an important instrument in combating violence. What we have achieved is a change to framework conditions through regional initiatives with international concepts. The German Protection against Violence Act, for example, has taken on distinct characteristics derived from European experience. Let me also, at this point, mention the Austrian right of exclusion in cases of domestic violence, which keeps perpetrators of violence away from the home. DAPHNE I’s budget made it possible to fund 140 projects. The thirty-five projects selected in 2001 focussed on the genital mutilation of women, in which third countries were also involved, and the sexual exploitation of children through paedophilia. It must be made clear, though, that these projects saw the submission of 662 proposals in the last two years, and that these would in fact have necessitated funding to the tune of EUR 65 million. The glut of applications, and the fact that only 13% of all projects in respect of which applications were submitted could be funded, makes it apparent that significantly greater sums need to be made available. We cannot fail to come to the conclusion that funding for DAPHNE II must be increased to EUR 65 million, and my group, the Group of the , has supported an amendment to this effect. If the praise heaped on DAPHNE I is not to be forgotten – and it is not a matter of controversy to say that it should not be – then this must be made a political priority. The response from the Committee on Women’s Rights has been somewhat timid. In contrast to what my group has proposed, we have come up with the figure of EUR 50 million, so I have submitted the new amendment and ask you to support it. Amendment No 39 is intended to set up a helpdesk providing help to women’s organisations in the new Member States, which have as yet little experience of European programmes. We want the European Year against Violence to be based on our experience with DAPHNE and to make a definite mark. This European Year against Violence could become a reality as soon as 2006. I am aware that the idea of a substantial topping-up of funds is meeting with resistance from the Committee on Budgets, but if DAPHNE, which is founded upon the health articles in the Treaties, is not to go unheeded and be dismissed as a game like football – the example given by the Commissioner – for lack of a legal basis specific to it, and if we want to take seriously the problems involved in combating violence, then we must demonstrate political courage and make more funding available.

Political group: PSE