Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have had broad agreement about the budget for several years in succession. The main reason for this is that we have rapporteurs, a committee chairman and a collective spirit in the Committee on Budgets that I think the Member States should learn from, if what happened in Brussels last weekend is anything to go by. I should like to thank the rapporteurs and my colleagues. As last year’s rapporteur, for the 2003 budget, I have this year mainly had responsibility for implementing the budget, and that is something on which I thought I would reflect. Adopting a budget is just the first, relatively easy, stage, and then comes what is really difficult, namely implementing it. In that respect, I am concerned, both for 2003 and for the future, for example 2004. For a number of years, we have had large surpluses and large outstanding commitments, known as RALs, especially within the structural funds system, and these are huge amounts. Unfortunately, we are seeing this now too. We have recently had a report on the implementation for 2003 that identifies clear problems, even though there are areas that are being improved. We have recently decided on what is known as the global transfer of ever larger amounts left at the end of the year that have to be moved from under-implemented areas of the budget to other areas. That is, to an ever greater extent, particularly worrying when it comes to category 4, an area in which we have a severe lack of resources. It is also worrying when it comes to the Community initiatives, in which we have problems with a very large proportion of the resources. When even implementation of the information programmes is lagging behind in a situation in which we face large tasks of providing information in connection, for example, with the new Constitution, enlargement etc., it is clear that it is in actual fact a problem. Something serious must happen in this area before 2004 if the new Member States are not to be very disappointed when they see that implementation is at a quite different level than that stated in the budget. For several years, we have adopted a variety of reports on implementation etc. I believe that Parliament might need to adopt a more extensive, purposeful strategy in order to tackle the annual surpluses, the accumulated quantity of outstanding commitments and the poor implementation and to do so, for example, through a special report involving a strategy of some kind for dealing with the problems that cause this lagging behind. Last year, we in the Group of the put forward a number of proposals concerning simplification. I think we should extend this to include a more radical and strategic review of the way in which budget implementation in actual fact operates. I have seen on several occasions what I think is an absurd situation in which, for example, regions, universities and non-governmental organisations cease to seek appropriations, partly because the application procedure is so complicated and partly because the payments take so long to materialise that the applicants incur financial problems even though their projects have been earmarked for appropriations. I believe that the solution lies, for example, in continued reform, more modern budgeting techniques, more up-to-date auditing and a culture of greater openness. In the long term, I even believe that we could question the system of commitments and payments. We must definitely obtain financial perspectives that do not lock up all the sectors for seven years, something that is impossible to manage in the end. Parliament must perhaps also realise that the budget cannot simply be increased without ensuring that the Commission has the resources required for implementing the decisions. Those of us who may possibly be re-elected and who will then immediately have to begin debating Agenda 2007 will be faced with a large task as the next period of office begins.

Political group: PSE