Mr President, like other speakers this afternoon, I welcome the successful conclusion of this budget process. It is certainly one of the most peaceful that I have known and my congratulations on the excellent work done by our two rapporteurs. There are in any budget process successes and failures. We in our political group, as Mr Ferber has indicated, feel we have had more successes than failures in this budget process. Three issues stand out, and I would like to mention them. The first refers to the improvement of the quality of budget execution. We insisted from the beginning that we should pick up on the Commission, Council and Parliament declaration of December 2000, specifically looking to reduce outstanding commitments to a normal level by December 2003. To that effect, we suggested the appropriations for staff should be put in the reserve. As a result, we are now promised a document for the PDB 2004 setting out how we are going to eliminate abnormal outstanding commitments by the end of 2003. I think that we have some way to go, but this is a step in the right direction. Secondly, so far as appropriate involvement of Parliament in CFSP measures is concerned, what concerned us most was to how to get Parliament fully involved in consultation and information on how the monies will be spent by the Council. For that purpose, we withheld money in the reserve at first reading, so that we could have a proper negotiation with the Council on second reading. And now we have a joint declaration in accordance with the Interinstitutional Agreement, setting up for the first time a way in which Parliament will be fully involved in consultation and information, including in political dialogue on the CFSP. We also have put funds into the budget so that the Commission can come forward with a study establishing CFSP priorities over the next five years. I very much hope that this study will be completed. Last and not least is the question of successful implementation of the Commission reforms. For my group, this is an essential point. We therefore suggested that we should have some overall view of this and, for that purpose, on first reading, we put 500 staff into the reserve – the additional posts requested. Lo and behold, as a result of this, we now have a comprehensive report which I was just discussing with my colleagues – including Commissioner Kinnock this morning – observing that progress has indeed been made. But we would like it more widely known that progress has been made, but there are other methods under discussion in the Council at the moment and decisions to be taken before we face the electorate again in June 2004. Therefore, I think that on these three items, the 2003 budget has been a success. We had a strategy and we had some muscle enabling us to achieve that, by withholding monies or posts so that action could be taken. We must be vigilant over the next few months and ensure that progress continues to be made on these three items because none of them has been fully resolved in this 2003 budget. But it is thanks to Parliament's powers and the determination of our political group to use them that we have made progress on those three items so far. I end with a word of warning: current proposals in the European Convention seem to be aiming to restrict Parliament's power in the budgetary procedure – we should make sure that this does not happen. (Applause) IN THE CHAIR: MR PROVANVice-President

Political group: PPE-DE