WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3816/97 by Carmen DÍEZ DE RIVERA ICAZA to the Commission. Green accounting
Date: 1997-11-28
Institutions: DIEZ DE RIVERA ICAZA, European Parliament
Subjects: degradation of the environment, environmental policy, environmental protection

8. 6. 98

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 174/135

To recapitulate, the Commission contends that budgetary flows do not capture all the benefits from membership
of the Community. Community membership, which gives rise to financial and non-financial advantages as well
as obligations, has a non-budgetary dimension the importance of which dwarfs the budgetary dimension. For
example,  the  benefits  from  the  pursuit  of  common  objectives,  such  as  trade  liberalisation  and  European
economic  integration,  cannot  be  evaluated  in  terms  of  budgetary  flows  alone.  Moreover,  flows  from  the
Community budget invariably benefit not only the recipients but other Member States in the form of return flows.
Typical examples are structural funds and external expenditure, where the implementation of projects often gives
rise to purchases of goods and services from other Member States.

Furthermore, there is no single definition of a budgetary balance. This inevitably makes possible the design of
various  methods  of  approximating  the  net  budgetary  benefits  from  membership  of  the  Community,  and  the
choice of particular method often reflects the desire to highlight a particular point of view or to defend a specific
issue. In view of these difficulties, the Commission neither produces nor does it endorse any particular method of
calculating the Member States(cid:146) budgetary positions.

(98/C 174/203)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3816/97

by Carmen D(cid:14)·ez de Rivera Icaza (PSE) to the Commission

(28 November 1997)

Subject: Green accounting

Could the Commission inform me, as rapporteur for Parliament on the Communication COM 94/670 on green
accounting and environmental indicators, of the questions and responses obtained by the Council on steps taken
to implement the abovementioned Communication?

Answer given by Mr Santer on behalf of the Commission

(20 January 1998)

The communication to which the Honourable Member refers established a work programme which it has been
possible, thus far, to carry out with existing operational credits, available to the Commission, as planned and
without  specific  reference  to  the  Council.  The  communication  was  officially  transmitted  to  the  Council  in
January 1995. Since this time the collaboration with Member States(cid:146) representatives has been at working level,
most frequently in the regular meetings of the committees on environmental statistics. An oral report on their
achievements was made to the Environment Council meeting in Luxembourg on 16 October 1997, as a follow-up
to which the Commission prepared a more substantial report (1) on the current situation, which has been sent both
to the Parliament and the Council. This latter report was discussed on 16 December 1997 in the Council which,
while marking its appreciation for the work being done, did not make any substantive gesture as regards the
financing of the work.

(1)  SEC(97) 2314.

(98/C 174/204)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3817/97

by Mar(cid:14)·a Izquierdo Rojo (PSE) to the Commission

(28 November 1997)

Subject: Institute for Research on Mediterranean and Euro-Arab Cooperation

Heading A-3059 of the 1998 General Budget refers to the Institute for Research on Mediterranean and Euro-Arab
Cooperation, as well as adopted Amendment 789.

The exact location of this centre is not specified in the texts made available to Members nor in the justification
incorporated  into  the  amendment  concerned.  Therefore,  could  the  European  Commission  tell  us  where  this
Research Institute for Mediterranean and Euro-Arab Cooperation is situated?