Mr President, we are at the start of the budget cycle. The report that is now before us is not a detailed report, but one which outlines Parliament’s involvement. I would like to thank my fellow MEPs warmly for accepting this constraint and for not including all kinds of details in this report, however tempting that may be. We will be further detailing the 2002 budget of the other institutions very shortly. I will ensure that future cooperation with your will be sound. Allow me to outline the salient points of the report. I would like to start with enlargement. It will not come as a surprise to anyone that enlargement will also be one of the Committee on Budgets’ key challenges in the next few years. We cannot afford to sit idly until that moment arrives. The institutions must be ready to welcome the candidate countries. That is why – and that is so important – we are asking all institutions to develop long-term plans in which the implications of enlargement are mapped out, also covering the extra building and staff requirements, and especially the effects on the translation services. The preparatory activities generate costs, even before enlargement has actually taken place. The financial perspective must therefore reflect these extra needs. Another major point is efficiency. We owe it to the tax payer to exercise strict budgetary discipline and healthy financial management. Activity-Based Management and Activity-Based Budgeting will help us achieve this. That is why we are asking the institutions to make their budgets more transparent. Interinstitutional cooperation can also contribute to a more efficient use of funding and, where possible, this will need to be improved and extended. We will be drafting proposals to that effect this coming year. The institutions will need to display more than budgetary discipline. They will need to play an exemplary role. I would like to mention two areas which are important to me in that respect. Equal treatment, not only in terms of gender, but also in terms of all the grounds for discrimination listed in Article 13 of the Treaty. Equal treatment should be the cornerstone of our staffing policy. I would therefore ask the institutions to look into the barriers to equal treatment, the measures required to remove these barriers and the impact this has on the budget. I do not rule out the possibility that increased environmental awareness on the part of the institutions will also require adjustments in the budget in the short term. But whilst we in the environmental action programme only talk about the exemplary role of the government, here, we can put our money where our mouths are. The institutions need to make use of the amendments to the EMAS Regulation, as a result of which organisations like ours can now also take part in Community’s audit system governing environmental management and the environment. In this connection, we need to consider our buildings and the materials we use. We need to develop mobility plans. I would like to discuss all 35 paragraphs from the report with you in detail, and I know that you enjoy this subject matter just as much as I do, but I need to restrain myself, not only from a human point of view, because my fellow MEPs have heard the same tale a few times now, but also from a budgetary point of view. In the final analysis, this will all need translating and then distributing We would urge the other institutions to develop plans in order to avoid the unbridled growth of the work for the translation services. We hope to set a good example. I will therefore merely indicate a few aspects by way of thumbnail description, namely the importance of paying off the buildings as soon as possible via capital injections, the drafting of a statute for European political parties, and the statute for assistants. I will, however, say a few words on the Council’s budget. This budget has experienced strong growth. I do not deny the fact that there is a great deal of internal reorganisation and that strict budgetary discipline is being exercised. However, it just so happens that the Council is taking on an increasing number of operational activities in its budget, and this is why, slowly but surely, a kind of shadow Commission is being formed – a second institution where European policy is being executed. That is an objectionable development. Parliament should not have to be sidelined because this expenditure is being included in the Council’s budget, for fear of breaching a gentlemen’s agreement. Transparency of the European safety and defence policy’s expenditure is too important. If necessary, this can also be done via the Council’s budget, by including a separate heading. Only by means of a transparent budget can Parliament exercise democratic control on the spending of European funding. This subject shows once again that the budget is not so much a technical-financial matter, but mainly a political issue. (Applause)

Political group: Verts-ALE