Mr President, as this Parliament enlarges, Commissioner, you and I get physically further apart, but we are drawn closer together by the consequence of enlargement, which is that consumer protection is a prime concern now for a Community of 450,000,000 people. Tonight, the House has the opportunity to carry through an agreement at first reading, which will guarantee that support for consumers' activities. It came to us a little late but we have made good progress. I would particularly like to thank you, Commissioner, for the effort you made to get here tonight, after the lengthy day you have had, and also for the work of your staff. I would also like to thank the shadow rapporteurs for their solidarity which includes their presence here tonight, my own assistant Laura Sullivan, the consumer NGOs and the Council Presidency, all of whom have brought us to a position where we can tonight demonstrate that the total support in Council is overwhelmingly replicated in Parliament. We are presenting about thirty-one compromise amendments en bloc, all of which have involved give and take. If passed, the second bloc of amendments to the fifteen original ones would fall. That would leave about five remaining amendments which I would advise the House to vote down. I will deal with those last. These compromises reflect the consensus view that we need to widen the scale and the proportionate limit of support for consumer activities. We stand on the brink of enlargement and all the diverse needs that will follow from it. We have had to find legally sound ways to extend those provisions up to 2007, in cooperation with our friends and colleagues on the Committee on Budgetary Control. We also acknowledge that small - but equally deserving - applicants have been disadvantaged in the past by the arcane nature and length of the assessment process. The converse also applies. We need to be certain of the rules, qualifications and funding of all applicants, however obscure. Events unfolding today before other committees suggest that this caution is necessary. The Commission has told us that it accepts with good grace the requirement to supply an assessment of applications within three months. When that is not possible, we will be told why. I am glad that the Commissioner has stressed that his best endeavours and those of his team will go towards making early consideration of all these applications as effective as possible and that there will be seminars and other instruction particularly for those making applications for the first time and, sometimes, from a country which is itself a new Member State. It is an anomaly that we are having to discuss the pressing needs of enlargement at a time when, technically, we cannot consider the budget that we know must be used for that purpose post 2004. This is a first reading which can result in instant agreement between the three institutions if we all accept that none of the three have been pushed beyond their limits. The Commissioner knows that there has been a certain exasperation over some of the committees that have been set up and the discussions that have been held about consumer protection, not just in this institution but elsewhere too. We have to accept the limits of what we can do in saying who can meet where and do what in relation to consumer advice. My colleagues have wisely decided on that score that they would not push some of the amendments that came before the Committee, although we support and indeed sometimes salute the principles that inspired them. I have to say to my good friend, colleague and namesake Mr Bushill-Matthews that his Amendment No 11 is an amendment too far. I supported it in the Committee because I felt that we needed to make this point: there is exasperation where sometimes - and the Commission I think accepts this as the case - applications have not been considered not just within three or four months, as the Commission would have preferred, but within five months and beyond. The worst offenders are not DG SANCO. Indeed, some of the examples Mr Bushill-Matthews gave come from other directorates-general. The point however stands, we need to improve on it and we need to be able to demonstrate a greater responsiveness on the part of the Commission. I hope Mr Bushill-Matthews will tell us tonight with his customary subtlety that he understands the position we are in. In conclusion, this is a modest proposal. The Commissioner will understand that I do not mean this in a Swiftian sense. We are not devouring our children; we are nourishing them with this proposal. I hope it is commended by everybody in the House.

Political group: PSE