Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President, Commissioner, honourable members, as the last person to speak on this agenda item, all I can do of course is make a few points and reiterate a few things that have already been said. But as you are all yourselves aware, repetition is the only way to learn. First of all, I would like to thank the Council for the constructive cooperation it has provided throughout the year’s trialogues and in all the conciliation meetings. However, it is not just the current Council Presidency that I should like to thank, but also the previous one, the Portuguese Presidency, for creating a thoroughly cordial atmosphere despite all the differences of opinion. I shall therefore deliver the good news first: compared with this year’s budget, both the Commission and the Council – albeit only temporarily – have proposed a total reduction of EUR 144 million in the budgetary lines for employment. But Parliament has already made it clear in its guidelines that the issue of job creation is very close to our hearts, and that one of our first priorities in internal policy is to fight unemployment in Europe. This is our determined aim, our goal, and we gave renewed expression to it in our resolution of July. We have always found the Council ready to listen, both under the Portuguese and now under the French Presidency. Accordingly, not only did the Council declare, in the course of the conciliation procedure, that it was willing to support our job creation initiative through suitable instruments for small and medium-sized enterprises, we have also agreed to come to an understanding, in the course of the budgetary procedure, on an amount within the meaning of number 33 of the Interinstitutional Agreement, which we intend to use to achieve our goal. So far, so good. So what exactly are the problematic areas? Where do Parliament and the Council differ? In view of the limited amount of time available to us all, allow me to mention just two. Firstly there is the manner in which the Council seeks to finance those policies where there is fundamental agreement. As Parliament made clear last year, we believe it is necessary to undertake a multiannual revision of Category 4 in order to meet the requirements for reconstruction aid in the Balkans in a stable and secure manner. The Council flatly refuses to countenance such a revision of the Financial Perspective. It obviously prefers a hand-to-mouth existence. No revision! That is the name of the game. The Council has obviously made this its guiding principle, for how else are we to interpret the fact that it persists in refusing to commit the funds for the pre-accession countries Cyprus and Malta to Chapter 7 of the pre-accession strategy? After all, that is where they belong logically, and in terms of content. But the Council does not want there to be a revision, even if it is not bound up with a financial amendment. As a Parliament, we now have an extremely difficult decision before us with respect to Category 4. The second major bone of contention is the Council’s tendency to focus time and again, in the course of its budgetary readings, on payment appropriations alone. The Commissioner made the same point. I cannot say whether it is because of our institutional view, or whether it also says something about our personally held views, that we both majored on this in our criticism. The Council’s declared aim was an increase in expenditure for 2001 of only 3.5% in comparison with the figures for the current budget. The outcome is a draft budget in which the ratio of commitments to payments is no longer sound. For example, on closer inspection, it is possible to discern that the commitments for 2001 are not matched with adequate payment appropriations. In category 2, for example, the commitments are covered to a mere 2.1%. In categories 3, 4 and 7 the situation looks better, but still not good. In many lines of the draft budget, the payments do not even cover a quarter of the commitments. In quite a few lines, no payments whatsoever have been earmarked for the commitments for 2001. This no longer has a great deal to do with serious budgetary management. I need hardly emphasise again that the Interinstitutional Agreement – which, incidentally, we concluded only 11⁄4 years ago – sets out as a matter of course, at various points, that there should be an orderly working out of the European Union’s expenditure, which should be regarded as being closely linked with the working out of the commitments. In fact it means that a strict relationship should be preserved between commitment appropriations and payment appropriations. The Council is neglecting this close relationship in the most criminal way. Its aim is to reduce expenditure. It argues that, at the end of the day, the Member States have to put their national budgets in order too. That is all well and good, but it must not be allowed to bring our own common European budget into disorder from the very outset. IN THE CHAIR: MRS LIENEMANNVice-President President. – The debate is closed.

Political group: PSE