WRITTEN QUESTION No. 523/99 by Jan MULDER Interview in the 18-25 December 1998 issue of 'Nederlands Gemeente' magazine with Mr Landaburu, Director at the Commission, on Member States' net contributions
Date: 1999-03-08
Institutions: European Parliament, MULDER
Subjects: EU expenditure, European Commission, European official, Member States' contribution, administrative transparency, dissemination of EU information, duties of civil servants, financing of the EU budget, own resources, press release

C 370/50

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

21.12.1999

(1999/C 370/063)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0523/99

by Jan Mulder (ELDR) to the Commission

(8 March 1999)

Subject: Interview in the 18-25 December 1998 issue of

‘Nederlands Gemeente’ magazine with

Mr Landaburu, Director at the Commission, on Member States’ net contributions

In its 18-25 December 1998 issue, the magazine ‘Nederlands Gemeente’ published an interview with
Mr Landaburu, Director at the Commission’s DG for Regional Policy and Cohesion. According to the title
of the article, this senior EU civil servant criticises the Netherlands, saying that ‘the net payers are very
arrogant’.

Does the Commission endorse the statements made by Mr Landaburu, assuming they were correctly

1.
represented?

Does the Commission consider that it is part of the duties of a Commission official to make

2.
statements on the attitude of individual Member States as regards their contribution to the EU budget?

Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission

(27 April 1999)

The remarks attributed to the Director-General for Regional Policy and Cohesion were made at an
1.
informal meeting with a group of
journalists from the regional press concerned principally with
negotiations on Agenda 2000 and the many difficulties which were then in evidence. At no time during
the discussion was there any intention to denigrate the Member States in the way referred to, but mention
was certainly made of the ‘hard line’ being taken by the net contributors and of the fact that their
interpretation of the concept of stabilisation differed diametrically from that of the ‘cohesion countries’.

2.
In the interests of transparency and information to the press, and hence to the European citizen, it
does not appear inappropriate to refer to the content and difficulty of the discussions between the Member
States on both the revenue and expenditure sides of the Community budget.

(1999/C 370/064)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0524/99

by Daniel Varela Suanzes-Carpegna (PPE) to the Commission

(8 March 1999)

Subject: Fish product canning industry and aquaculture in the European Union

At its June 1998 part-session the European Parliament debated and adopted the own-initiative report on
the fish product canning industry and aquaculture in the European Union (A4-0137/98) (1),
in the
conclusions to which, inter alia, it called on the Commission ‘to draw up a study on the situation in the
fish product canning industry and aquaculture in the European Union, covering companies, trends in the
industry in the last few years in the various Community countries, data on production, origin of raw
material, volume of exports and imports, employment, technical and health standards, tariff arrangements
and, in general, on the law applicable to the industry and codification of that law’.

Can the Commission say what measures it has taken to comply with Parliament’s request as regards
drawing up the requested study and codifying the law applicable to the fish product canning industry?

(1) OJ C 210, 6.7.1998, p. 295.