Brussels, 14/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - At his speech to the temporary committee of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday on “Political Challenges and Budgetary Resources”, the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, acknowledged that the negotiations on the adoption of the forthcoming financial perspectives (2007-2013) were “particularly difficult” and supported some of the ideas of the rapporteur for the EP, Reimer Böge (CDU), whilst calling on the European Parliament to display “realism in its proposals”. Mr Barroso pointed out that some of the Member States have shown “no sign of flexibility”, whilst repeating the need for political agreement on this dossier by the end of June. “Otherwise it will be a major setback for Europe”, warned the President of the Commission. “Your ideas are totally in line with what the Commission has suggested”, Mr Barroso told Mr Böge (EUROPE 8921 and 8918). For Bulgaria and Romania, for which direct expenditure under the common agriculture policy (CAP) has been estimated at 7.9 billion EUR, Mr Böge proposed to stay under the ceiling set by the European Council of October 2002 in Brussels, and provides for the possibility of national co-funding by the 15 “old” Member States, to guarantee the level of support set by the European Council. This is an “intelligent idea which could provide guarantees for farmers (…) if co-financing is compulsory!”, Mr Barroso exclaimed, adding that this solution would be “accepted as a last resort”. Barroso opposed the position of the rapporteur on the five-year duration of the forthcoming financial perspectives. “The forthcoming financial perspectives must run till 2013” to give the multi-annual programmes (cohesion policy, research etc) sufficient scope and to take account of the existing “agreement on agricultural expenditure for this period”, he said. More generally, Mr Barroso repeated the argument which the MEPs also put forward, that “we cannot have more Europe with fewer resources”. He called indirectly on various Member States to keep the principle of European solidarity and the objectives of the cohesion policy in mind. “People must stop assuming that funding which builds up the infrastructure of other countries is wasted money”, he said.
Mr Barroso also explained that the dossier on own resources was at deadlock in the Council and repeated that the idea of a new tax, supported by Kathalijne Buitenweg (Greens/EFA, Netherlands) was neither “conceivable nor viable”. He welcomed the idea of Alain Lamassoure (EPP-ED, France) of bringing together members of the European Parliament and of national parliaments to try to identify changes which could be made to the own-resource system. On the British refund, which Esko Seppänen (GUE/NGL, Finland) called for an end to, Mr Barroso pointed out that the Commission's proposal to bring in a generalised correction mechanism “did not receive much support in the Council”. Another solution must therefore be sought, he said.
The temporary committee on the EP is to adopt Mr Böge's draft report in Strasbourg on 10 May, so that it can then be voted on at the June plenary (6-9 June).