Mr President, Commissioner, the figures provided by the Commission in its 11th Annual Report on the Structural Funds – confirmed by the Second Report on economic and social cohesion – show that, despite the budgetary effort made in the 1994-1999 period, the considerable social and territorial inequalities that existed prior to 1994 still remain. The major initial regional differences have remained the same or have increased. Proof of this is the fact that the average per capita income of the 10% of the population that lives in the most prosperous regions of the Union is still 2.6 times higher than that of the 10% of the population living in the least-developed regions. Territorial inequalities that existed within certain States that have Objective 1 regions, such as Italy, Spain and Greece are also still very much in evidence. In contrast with this situation, we have seen a strengthening in recent years of the area between London, Paris and Hamburg. This is a huge central region, which accounts for only a seventh of Europe’s surface area, but for one-third of its population and which enjoys almost one-half of its total income, in a concentration of cities and employment that threatens the sustainable development of the European Union. Unfortunately, nothing suggests that these trends are likely to change over the next few years. The budgetary forecasts approved in Agenda 2000 for the present period are extremely restrictive, which means that, whereas in 1999 the percentage of the European Union’s GDP dedicated to cohesion policy reached 0.46%, in 2006 it will not exceed 0.31%, a return to 1994 levels. These figures are extremely worrying. Furthermore, one need only look at the experience of German reunification to understand that, if we do not do everything that we can to remedy the situation, the problem will get worse when the enlargement States join the Union. Given these circumstances, we must be aware that when we talk about Structural Funds policy, we are not dealing with ‘just another’ EU problem. On the contrary, we are talking about a fundamental issue, in that the direction of political Europe depends to a large extent on positive developments in cohesion policy both with regard to Objective 1 territories in the current EU that still need it and to the new Member States that will require budgetary funds that must not be additional or supplementary funds. Unless this is precisely the decision we take, we will see the unacceptable paradox of the much-needed cohesion policy for the new States being paid for with money taken from the budget that is today earmarked for the least developed countries of the Union. Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot allow the European Union to take a step backwards in territorial and social development policy. Political Europe would not be what it is today without cohesion policy and it would be hypocritical and irresponsible to call for the one whilst refusing to provide the economic resources to make the other possible. In this context, I think that we cannot delay taking a decision that will ensure an increase in the Union’s budget for the next programming period that is considerably higher than 1.27% of the Community GDP.

Political group: Verts-ALE