Mr President, the framework regulation on reforming the CFP does not yet cover the financial implications of the reform for the Community budget. These implications are to be presented in separate proposals and the Committee on Budgets will therefore examine them thoroughly at the appropriate time. The sums forecast for implementing the reform, however, are fairly modest, and include, in Chapter B-II 90, ‘Support measures for the Common Fisheries Policy’: EUR 1 million to create a joint inspection structure, EUR 100 000 to create four regional advisory councils and EUR 1 million to improve scientific advice. The Committee on Budgets is in favour of these three actions under the reform and has approved the sums proposed, keeping them in reserve as proposed by the Commission, pending the definitive adoption of the framework regulation. The Committee on Budgets nonetheless considers that Parliament should be able to examine closely the detailed proposals presented by the Commission on each one of these actions, taking account of their repercussions, in particular on human resources, administrative spending and missions and Comitology meetings. I would like to ask the Commission to clarify one point with regard to improving scientific advice. The framework Regulation stipulates the sum of EUR 4 million; the Commission, however, in the preliminary draft budget, states that only EUR 1 million, held in reserve, will be allocated to this action. At the same time, we see that the Commission has increased this sum by EUR three million in comparison with last year. This amount, in addition to the EUR one million in reserve, could represent a general increase of EUR four million, as laid down in the framework Regulation. As this is not clear, however, my question to the Commission is this: is the EUR four million increase – three plus one – allocated to improving scientific advice, as stipulated in the framework Regulation, or on the contrary, will this action benefit solely from the EUR one million held in reserve? And in the latter case, what does the Commission intend to do with the EUR three million increase in the B-II 904 heading? With regard to Mr Varela’s report, which concerns one of the main elements of CFP reform – reducing the capacity of the EU fishing fleet – the Committee on Budgets assumes, as it is bound to, that the Committee on Fisheries considers it necessary to apply scrapping measures. We therefore need to implement other less drastic, reversible measures, such as evaluating the number of vessels to which this measure would apply, and the Committee on Budgets is therefore only giving its opinion on the financial impact of scrapping. The draft Regulation stipulates an initial sum of EUR 32 million for 2003, as a special incentive for cofinancing. It also calculates the total additional sums required during the 2003-2006 period to be EUR 271.6 million. The Committee on Budgets considers that financing the new action is incompatible with the maximum limit under Heading 2 of the current financial perspective and that it will therefore only be possible to make available the EUR 32 million already laid down for the 2003 budget by mobilising additional appropriations using the instruments provided for by the interinstitutional agreement.

Political group: PSE