Brussels, 24/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 24 May Alain Lamassoure (EPP, France), the chairman of the European Parliament's budgets committee, declared: “We are faced with strong and quite politically disagreeable divisions at the Council of Ministers of the EU, between net contributor countries to the budgets and net beneficiary states.” He made this statement during an exchange of views on the preparation of the trialogue, which will take place on 11 July, on the EU's draft budget for 2012.
Lamassoure considers that the Council is divided into two camps. “This is a situation that is both politically destructive and pernicious for the EU, which finds itself divided into two categories of countries - rich countries and poor.” According to Lamassoure, this is another argument in favour of highlighting the necessity of “getting back to real own resources” for the EU and subsequently resolving the situation. As part of the preparations for the discussions with the Council on the EU's 2012 budget, a delegation from the EP's budgetary committee will visit Warsaw on Thursday 26 and Friday 27 May to meet Polish government representatives. It will be the Polish Presidency that has responsibility for negotiating the draft 2012 budget.
Francesca Balzani (S&D, Italy) said that she agreed with Lamassoure on the need to concentrate the debate on payment appropriations rather than on payments because there was a danger of problems arising with payments. She defended a “serious and credible budget”.
Giovanni La Via (EPP Italy) said that given the period of crisis and austerity, they should focus resources on strategic policy measures promoting growth in Europe. He said that spending should also bring added value and that they should avoid wasting public spending.
Lucas Hartong (Non-Attached, the Netherlands) said that “any increase in the 2004 budget should be dismissed because member states are not managing well enough”. Helga Trüpel (Greens/EFA) broadly agreed with the approach by the rapporteur - “in one sense, certain budget changes are required and we should be prepared to make savings where we think investments have no future or are not sufficiently ecological”. She added that “we do not agree with the rapporteur on the pro-nuclear policies”. Isabelle Durant (Greens/EFA, Belgium) declared that her group was concerned because the work undertaken on ITER has begun, “whilst there is still a public enquiry and whilst the stress tests should be carried out between September and December 2012… we're afraid that there will be further charges linked to this enquiry and stress tests”. ITER will be one of the subjects to be discussed by the trialogue. (L.C./transl.fl)