Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, first of all I would like to extend warm thanks to the four rapporteurs who have done the groundwork for today. They have really excelled themselves and I feel this merits the recognition of the House. We are delighted to have found a basis for negotiations and a mood for negotiation, particularly as regards the Council, given that last year, we had a rather strained atmosphere to contend with, and this produced tension. The present mood allows for objective and focussed work, because instead of drawing up battlelines, we endeavour to actually solve the problems facing us. However, of course this also means coming clean with the tax payer and those who listen to us, on a whole range of points, so as to give them a realistic picture of the conditions we work under. Parliament has demonstrated repeatedly over the past few years that extreme financial prudence is the bedrock of our work. It is pure fiction to maintain that all we have ever been interested in is spending as much money as possible. That is not our approach! Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you only have to consider the fact that over the past five years, we have kept within the ceilings by EUR 15 billion, to realise that Parliament is at pains to deploy its funds as efficiently as possible. What we are not prepared to do though, is to simply dismiss out of hand, things we believe to be necessary, and which have been recognised as necessities following negotiations with yourself and the Commission, when there are new items on the agenda. We cannot have a situation where people who place their trust in us are let down in favour of the next ones in the queue. And so we must think about how to solve this problem. In the past – and we attach a great deal of importance to this – we have always kept to our mutual decisions under the Interinstitutional Agreement and the financial perspective. If the rates of increase seem to be high this year, then this is due primarily to the fact that the sharpest rates of increase are to be found in the sphere where we have the least say, i.e. agriculture. It is not that I want to complain about this. There has been a corresponding change in policy, and this must be financed accordingly – that is not what I am complaining about – but nor do I expect the President-in-Office to then stand up in this Chamber and say that there has been a huge increase, and comment that the Member States are financially prudent, whilst Parliament wants to push expenditure to the limit. That is not true, because you are the one primarily responsible for determining compulsory expenditure, and that is precisely where the figures are so high! When you look at the figures – a 6.3% increase in compulsory expenditure and, by your own admission, a 0.23% increase in our areas – then you will see who is really being financially prudent, so as to be able to pursue their policies, and who is responsible for the increases. With all due respect for the fact that the national Finance Ministers have set out to reduce their national debts and actually cancel commitments entered into in the past, so as to safeguard opportunities for future generations, I would point out that Parliament has commitments from the past too! We are not in a position to accumulate debt. Perhaps that is just as well. But we have made promises in the past, or rather made announcements and formulated common policies that will in fact need to be converted into payments at some stage. We cannot have a situation where we talk in a very relaxed manner about commitments over the years, and repeatedly make these promises, but then, when it comes to paying up, say that we are now unable to afford it and will have to cut back a bit in this area! I believe it is very important for the Council members to register the fact that payments are commitments entered into in the past that will actually have to be honoured. We can approach this in two ways with these payments. Mr Elles made the point that we could of course reduce the commitments and retain the payments, which would enable us to honour the commitments at some stage. But that would mean having to scrutinise our policies and cut back on them. I make no bones about the fact that the policies we agreed on formed the basis of the Interinstitutional Agreement and the financial perspective. They are important to us. These things mattered in the past, but they still matter today – now that we have a different political climate within Europe – particularly as there is so much at stake. We want to tackle unemployment for example. One outstanding achievement to come out of this budget is that we are prepared to join forces to support small and medium-sized enterprises, which create the most jobs, thereby benefiting Europe’s economy. We want to do something for them, and provision has been made for this in the budget in terms of actual figures. We want to do something to combat social exclusion, and to help the weakest of the weak. One of the policies we have opted for in the agricultural sector is to move away from a system of direct subsidies towards enhanced support for rural areas. This is a key priority in Parliament’s book, particularly as we have a right to a say in such matters. We intend to make sure that this area, more than any other, is given a boost. We have made it our business, over the past year, to see that all the funds allocated for this sphere were indeed taken up, because it is vital to frame the necessary policies for rural areas and for the people who live there. We are more than happy to work with the Council and all the others, on this. I say this as a Social Democrat. It is traditionally said of the Social Democrats that as a party, they are not the natural representatives of farmers or rural areas. I will tell you now that we most certainly are, because we believe in equal opportunities. We have other priorities on the foreign policy front. We want to combat poverty, wherever it happens to be in the world. We want to drive democratisation processes forward, and we want to strike a balance between the traditional political fields of foreign policy now before us. We believe that a constructive approach to eastward enlargement should go hand in hand with a well thought out and properly financed Mediterranean policy. These two policy areas must be in harmony with each other. Anyone who pursues eastward enlargement, must also be aware that as far as we are concerned, the Mediterranean is also an important part of the geopolitical situation we have to engage ourselves in. Something else we have had to deal with latterly, and which has caused us a great deal of problems – thankfully I would say, because they stem from the fact that a democratisation process is underway – is the situation in the Balkans. When you, Mr President-in-Office, then say this must be financed from existing budgetary funds, I would ask you to consider just one thing: this year alone we have made 200 000 flexibility instruments available, and supplemented this with EUR 180 million from the emergency reserve. Therefore, this year alone we will have included EUR 380 million in fresh funds in the budgetary lines and made it available. This problem will occupy us for the next six or seven years, and probably even longer. When we see that we have already committed EUR 380 million in fresh funds to this area this year, then I am completely baffled as to how, if we estimate that we are going to need EUR 5.5 billion for Serbia over the next seven years, for example, we are going to be able simply to produce it out of thin air. This would be impossible! We are prepared to take a look at our budget and see where we could improve our effectiveness. This would go hand in hand with the reform of the Commission, which, as it happens, has already set us thinking about how we can make our policies more effective overall. One strategy is to create reserves, and then we must enquire closely, before we make the money available, as to how matters are to be taken forward. A second strategy is the one used by the Commission, i.e. the reform process within the Commission is being reinforced by making the appropriate number of staff available, so that the steady stream of additional tasks we have taken upon ourselves in the past, can actually be implemented. The worst thing that can befall us is to arouse hopes and then have to disappoint them. With your permission, I will again make the point, in the light of a current discussion, that over the past few years, and again this year, Parliament has discussed whether, people who are affected by natural disasters can receive aid from Parliament’s budget. Let there be no mistake, I think it is criminal to give people who have been affected by natural disasters the impression that we have the means to solve all the problems they face as a result. If we only include a few million in the lines – that is about all we can manage – it is just a stalling tactic, because when the people actually come to need it, we withdraw it again. When there have been one or two disasters at the beginning of the year, all we need to tell people at the end of the year is that we are sorry but we do not have anything left for them. There are people in northern Italy who need our help at the moment, but if they were to turn to Europe, we would have to tell them we were sorry but we do not have any money left because we spent it back in January, February or March. That is completely irresponsible. That is not the kind of perception we want people to have of Europe. When we announce something, or promise something, when we say we are able, and want, to help, then we must be in a position to follow this up. We must organise our political structures accordingly. We must go through what we define as being the central aspects of our policies with a fine toothcomb, and we must work together to see that our proposals are properly financed. As Socialists, we expressly offer our cooperation. I am looking forward to the forthcoming discussions with the Commission and the Council, and hope, in the interests of the citizens of Europe, that we reach some positive conclusions.

Political group: PSE