Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I take the floor to state the position of my group on the Mulder report concerning the draft general budget for the financial year 2004. I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on his hard work to achieve a consensus. The latter is always difficult to reach at first reading when all the parties involved are intent on promoting their own priorities. The rapporteur has done a good job. The draft now before us is supported by most of the House. My group endorses the draft presented today. We believe it is in line with the key tenets of our strategic position. It seems a moderate approach to the increase of payment appropriations has emerged from first reading. Account is taken of Member States’ need to comply with the Stability Pact and the requirement to absorb the balance. Account is also taken of requests by observers from future Member States. They would like an increase in payments, in line with the sums agreed at Copenhagen. Nonetheless, these modest figures for the increase of payment appropriations should become a threshold for Parliament. In principle, the Group of the European People’s Party does not envisage further negotiations on subsequent reductions by the Council between now and second reading and conciliation. As regards the Mulder report, however, we retain the amendments consequent upon our group’s position. Firstly, there is the reference to the financial perspective after 2006. We can agree to an internal debate on this subject being launched by the current Commission, although we believe it is far too early for such a debate to be leading to decisions on the subject. Once the new Parliament and Commission come into being in 2004 it should fall to them to take the decisions. We call for provisions to this effect to be included in the resolution. Concerning the debate on the former A-30 lines, my group is very concerned that failure to reach agreement within the Council could delay adoption of the new legal bases. A Council proposal for conciliation on 24 November is required. Should the aforementioned agreement be delayed, there might be unfortunate consequences for organisations currently receiving subsidies from the Union. There needs to be some means of putting pressure on the Council. We are therefore retaining our amendment regarding the basic remuneration of the Council’s staff. I refer to the EUR 1 million in reserve. The rapporteur, Mrs Gill, is aware of all this. In addition, we call for the reference in the resolution to be stricter and more specific. Turning to Heading 4, all the groups have reached a most satisfactory agreement to safeguard the European Parliament’s priorities concerning geographical areas. The Commission’s preliminary draft proposal was inadequate. It contained two interrelated problems. Firstly, it distorted the very structure of the budget, creating an unrealistic margin. Decisions on allocations for the Union's external action cannot be taken solely on the basis of accounting criteria or criteria for budget implementation. The credits approved amount to political signals sent out by the Union to third countries. Secondly, the Council’s first reading took place on the basis of the figures in the preliminary draft proposal. Credits were further reduced, as if that were feasible. The wrong political signals were sent out, and no account taken of the European Parliament’s traditional priorities. I should emphasise that this House is sovereign. It is responsible and well able to reconcile political priorities with desirable levels of implementation. Thursday’s vote will be on a real margin, not on a virtual one. Lastly, I am sure the amendment will deal with the following issue, and that other speakers will speak on it at greater length and more eloquently. I simply wished to ask honourable Members to consider whether in the light of the United Nations resolution, the Union should actually offer to the Donors Conference that scant sum proposed by the Commission and agreed by the Council. In such a scenario, what would become of the Union’s political initiative if the only amendment tabled is rejected?

Political group: PPE-DE