Mr President, the TACIS programme has dedicated its greatest efforts to supporting Mongolia, Russia and the other New Independent States in the carrying out of reforms and the political and administrative restructuring of their social and economic institutions in order to facilitate the construction of a democratic society which is based on a free market economy. As we all know, this is an ambitious programme which will require a great economic effort on the part of the European Union, in the order of EUR 4,000 million in seven years. Consequently, the text of the proposed regulation has taken a long time to draw up, and even then it has been judged to be unspecific and incomplete, since it does not include implementation procedures. This has been a complex report and it has taken us time to reach an acceptable degree of consensus. Furthermore, there is no need to stress that, on sending these funds to Russia and the New Independent States, we were not convinced that they would be administered properly. In fact, we were rather worried about their administration and distribution. Initially, it was the Committee on Budgets that requested greater control and rigour in the implementation of this aid programme. Today, more than six months after those first exchanges of opinion, I think that we should be proud of the modifications made to the proposed regulation, mainly by this Committee, which increase the guarantees that these funds will be put to good use. There was also a problem with the commitology of this programme within the old REX Committee, but, after the Council decision of 28 June 1999, to standardise the different Committees, this obstacle was overcome. On the other hand, the discussion of the legal basis of this report has also been polemical, although in the end the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market approved it, finally defining it under Article 235, a decision which did not please many of us. Another problem which has faced us is the fact that, until now, there have been no harmonised implementation procedures in the proposal for a regulation. I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission representative when we will have harmonised procedures, which will guarantee more transparency, and efficiency, as the second report of the Independent Experts recommended. Neither do I wish to end my speech without drawing attention to the unfortunate events in Chechnya and I therefore propose an oral amendment regarding the suspension of aid to Russia while this conflict continues. I would like to make it clear that I do not intend to change the basis of Amendment No 39 of my report, but I do wish to adapt it to recent events, to which end we have reached agreement amongst the representatives in our committee, thereby achieving greater coherence, consensus and technical quality. The text of the amendment which we are proposing would be as follows: “In accordance with the European Parliament resolution of 18 November 1999, the conclusions of new contracts covering measures for the benefit of Russia to be funded in the context of the budget for the 2000 financial year shall be suspended, with the exception of the TACIS line for democracy, until a satisfactory solution has been found in Chechnya, in accordance with the European Union’s recommendations and on the basis of the procedure established in Article 13 of the present Regulation”. Finally, I would like to ask the representative of the European Commission, with regard to this last point as well as to the report in general, if he is really going to take account of the recommendations made within the framework of this consultation, once they have been approved by this Parliament.

Political group: PPE-DE