Mr President, representatives of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Wynn’s joke would have been much better if instead of members of the Committee on Budgets we had been Finance Ministers. Apart from that, you have made us all laugh just the same. We are pleased today because the Färm and Stenmarck reports have brought consensus to this House. They have also brought consensus to our relations with the Council and have responded as far as possible to the Commission’s fair demands. In summary, we believe that the Nordic dimension has been very beneficial to the interests of the European Union and therefore today we are debating the draft budget for 2003 in a situation which those of us with long budgetary experience could describe as exceptionally calm. The almost EUR 100 000 million we are going to approve is of little quantitative significance in terms of the Union’s economy, but its relative importance is very great because, let us not forget, what both politicians and citizens understand by Europe is there, in those scant EUR 100 000 million. The final consensus, however, for which we have so much to thank the Danish Presidency, which was so willing to hold discussions, does not hide the fact that there are still thorns in the sides of Parliament. I will comment on a couple of them: firstly – and other speakers have said this – the real budgetary power of this House is diminishing all the time. When we are not talking about obligatory expenditure, we are talking about multi-annual programmes or privileged expenditure or amending budgets. The percentage of the Community budget not subject to the direct control and decisions of this Parliament increases every year. Within the proposals my group is making to the Convention, those dealing with changing this situation stand out. A representative Parliament must decide on all expenditure. Codecision must be generalised, without thereby jeopardising agricultural and structural spending which must be guaranteed. Above all, I believe it is a political mistake to translate the way in which budgetary austerity is carried out in the Member States to the Union’s budget, and there are two reasons for this: firstly, because budgetary restrictions are being applied to a Community budget which by its very nature does not have the capacity for indebtedness. It is understandable that a national government which wants to, or which must, comply with the Stability Pact has to act on its public deficit and, if possible, achieve zero deficit, but to apply these annual rates of budgetary growth of less than 2% per annum to the Union’s budget leads to an increasing insufficiency in Community resources. It is expected that the Union will do increasing numbers of things with fewer resources. And not only is this miracle not eternal, but furthermore it is not sustainable. Secondly, how would the Council explain these increasing budget balances being returned to the Member States with a rate of use of own resources now practically of 1% rather than the theoretical 1.27%? The answer remains in the air. There are Member States which use, as a variable for their national budgetary adjustments, structural funds which they do not commit and do not implement. I ask myself whether this is the right way to administrate the European Union, whether this Parliament should agree with this way of acting. Let us hope that the Convention helps us to resolve this problem which we are all facing.

Political group: PPE-DE