Mr President, I give my thanks to the rapporteurs. The four of them deserve congratulations for the work they have put in. I welcome Mr Patriat, who is in the Chamber for the first time for this debate. I thank him for his clarity What he said was absolutely clear. The message he can pass on to Mrs Parly is: do not book a plane for Thursday night. It is going to be a long Thursday night and the flight will be some time on Friday. For the 2001 budget – that is for conciliation – there is a touch of déja vu in that it is so similar to the 2000 budget because category 4 is overriding everything. Nobody seems to be talking about anything except category 4. If we could turn the clock back to when we agreed the Interinstitutional Agreement, if we had given EUR 200 million extra to category 4, we would have solved a lot of problems over the last two years. The fact that category 4’s ceiling has now been exceeded by EUR 380 million tells us that we really should have done something like that. We are trying to safeguard Parliament’s priorities in category 4. When people talk about making reductions or finding the money within category 4 to fund certain priorities, do not forget that Parliament has its priorities, We made that clear in the vote in committee. But there are three areas which are giving us cause for concern. Kosovo, of course – which we had the problem with last year. The transfer that we made last night should resolve the funding for Kosovo, and we should have less of a problem next year because of what we voted for last night. In fact, we have problem in that we have given too much. We now have EUR 25 million over the EUR 814 million, so what we could discuss at the trialogue and conciliation is how to take EUR 25 million away from Kosovo, to give it to – let us say – MEDA. With the transfer of EUR 175 million we have estimated EUR 25 million more than we expected. We are saying we should use the flexibility instrument for MEDA. We will try to get an agreement with the Council and the Commission on that. But although we talk about the flexibility instrument, let us not forget it does not exist unless the Council and Parliament agree to it coming into existence. Unless it comes into existence we have not just one major problem but several problems. As for Serbia, we all remain uncertain as to what the needs are there. Therefore we have put the PM on the line. I turn now to what Mr Wurtz said before. It had a lot of validity. But to reject the budget at this stage, at first reading, is totally wrong. The content of the argument is worth considering for support, but to try to reject the budget at first reading is nonsense. We have a long way to go before we get to the second reading but at least he has given us something to think about. On the western Balkans, President-in-Office, you said that the Council considers EUR 614 million to be enough. We do not and the Commission does not. We reckon we have more scientific evidence than your guess at a figure. So that figure will need to be clarified. We base it on what the Commission and the World Bank reported last time. My real worry is that, when the Commission and the World Bank come back with their report at the end of November or beginning of December, it will just be written off by the Council. You said that if we needed a revision of the Interinstitutional Agreement, then we have to base it on needs and availability, and of course we have to consider the flexibility instrument first. But what if the needs are extremely high? What if the availability is extremely low? What if the flexibility instrument is not enough? Then the reality is that we will have to look at an IIA. My real concern is that the Council will simply say that they do not agree with this analysis, that we should forget it and that they are sticking to the existing ceilings. If that happens we have major problems and Mr Wurtz may be our best friend at the end of the day. Let us bear that in mind. As regards MEDA, the Council said that the commitments are not a problem owing to the eight years of payment backlogs. If we took that argument to its final conclusion, we would not need any commitments. We could solve all our problems by taking every commitment away from MEDA and just working on the outstanding payments. We believe that the Commission has proposed realistic figures for MEDA. We have spoken to Commissioner Patten at length, as well as to Commissioner Schreyer, and if the extra staffing is made available, as proposed in the White Paper, at least there should be the beginnings of some substantial movement on MEDA. There is a distinct difference between Parliament and the Council. We know that we have representation without taxation. We do not have to find the money – the Member States have to do that. We have representation without taxation. But the Council’s problem is prime ministers and foreign ministers who say one thing and finance ministers who say another. That is something like proclamations without appropriations. There is a real lack of coordination that leads to deprivation and frustration. (Laughter and applause) President-in-Office, there are several issues which we need agreement on: real issues. I would like to touch on the White Paper, because you and the Commission have failed to mention what was actually said in the trialogue. That concerns the early retirement scheme where, I believe, the Commission gave its approval in principle, but you were awaiting a proposal on the financial regulation. That will be one of the issues we have to resolve – it is not just the question of the 400 posts, it is the package that goes with it. President-in-Office, I am looking forward to the trialogue and to the conciliation with great anticipation. My flight is booked for Friday, so I am ready for a long night on Thursday, but I hope that at the end of all this we can get a budget we are all satisfied with, so we can do justice to the tax-payers of the European Union, to the people we represent, but also to those in need, especially in the MEDA areas, especially in Serbia and especially in the western Balkans. (Applause)

Political group: PSE