Mr President, we welcome the debate this afternoon. As the Commission President has announced, this is a Commission decision already, and to come first to us in the Parliament is always an agreeable thing so far as budgetary matters are concerned. First, from my Group's perspective, we will be taking the view that Mr Wynn has just expressed: we would rather be very prudent about whether we need the financial perspectives at all. We had multiannual agreements which keep discipline, which we did not have before the financial perspectives were introduced. We do not wish guidelines – which is what financial perspectives are – to become an end in themselves. We should recall very clearly as we go through this discussion that we have the right under Article 272 of the existing Treaty – not necessarily under the Constitutional Treaty but the existing Treaty – to be able to continue the budget process, and we shall therefore be very careful to see that parliamentary rights are properly safeguarded in the whole process. Secondly, if there is to be a financial perspective, we welcome the ideas that the President has put forward today about better flexibility, categorisation and looking ahead to how money will be properly spent. Let us be clear that there will not be any decision in this Parliament about the final nature of this financial perspective. We also have to take inspiration from Mr Colom i Naval's advice and knowledge of this. You and I, Joan, had a common view about the last financial perspective and I sense it is very clear that we have a shared view on this one, particularly regarding the length of the financial perspective. We have made it very clear, in Mr Wynn's resolution and in our own Group documents, that we do not want a financial perspective to go beyond the term of office of the next Commission, because how can one possibly justify in democratic terms that we are deciding for future parliaments and for future Commissions? We should stick to the term of office of the next Commission, which is five years. To suggest a date after 2013 is to suggest that an old parliament will be committing a new parliament after 2014; it does not work. We will have to come to terms with that fact. The last thought is that now we are going to have enlargement – 25 countries – we know the difficulties will be very great in managing a European Union. Does this financial perspective address Turkey in any way? Or will that be an additional expenditure? Should you decide in December 2004 to start negotiations? For many in my political group, and maybe across the Parliament, to start full negotiations with a country when you do not even know what your existing financial capacity is – to run a union for 25 countries in this way – would be extraordinarily inept and irresponsible, because we need to know what the basis will be when we are negotiating with a country of that size. Therefore, in conclusion, please let us avoid, when we come to decisions on this, a Soviet-style approach to planning which is going to take us too far into the future of our commitments. Secondly, let us make sure that it is properly democratic and let us not take decisions which we will regret later because we have taken on countries for which we do not have the financial capacity.

Political group: PPE-DE