Strasbourg, 23/04/2004 (Agence Europe) - In the president of the budget committee, Terence Wynn's resolution, adopted on 21 April (EUROPE 22 April, p13), the European Parliament warned that if no agreement between the parliament and Council was not forthcoming on the financial package, "there will be no financial perspectives, the treaty in force does not impose any obligation of providing financial perspectives, only national budgets". The plenary indicates that the new parliament and new European Commission, as well as the 25 member Council will have to negotiate the financial perspectives after 2006 and is insisting therefore on the need for an inter-institutional agreement on the subject and subsequently outlines its prerogatives (Parliament is the "key actor…and I hope that the other institutions recognise this", asserted the rapporteur during the debate). In this connection, parliament has noted that financial perspectives such as those proposed by the Commission have not "imposed any more rigidity between the different spending sectors and has led the parliament to renounce certain powers", including the "right to a notably model the budget". By adopting an amendment from the EPP-ED group, parliament considers that because of "reasons of democratic responsibility, it is essential that the timetable be better adapted to the mandates of the parliament and Commission" and is therefore requesting the setting up of a financial framework for five years.
In his resolution (which we are publishing in full in Europe/Documents), the plenary rejected the philosophy behind the letter of the Six (the six net contributor countries to the Community budget who are seeking to put a ceiling of 1% of GDP on spending). In effect they rejected (only 82 for, 381 no, with 4 abstentions) an amendment from British Conservative Philip Bradbourn, who requested that due to the current economic situation of Member States, "average spending during the next financial perspectives" did not go above 1% of GDP.
Parliament also underlined that it would be necessary to define the tasks of the Union "in the context of a medium-term political strategy" first of all and then establish the appropriate financial resources. Parliament believes that priorities should be cohesion policy (see below), sustainable development (the EP deplores the "superficial" interpretation of the sustainability concept), social policy and external actions (it regrets that the European Commission has not proposed specific amounts for external action in the face of unexpected crises). It welcomes the European Commission's proposal to make European citizenship one of the three main principles in the enlarged Union between 2007-13.