Verbatim report of proceedings

Tuesday, 4 July 2000 - Strasbourg

2001 budget (conciliation procedure)

  Haarder (ELDR), draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy. – (DA) Mr President, we in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy are enthusiastic supporters of the common foreign and security policy, and we are also supporters of these Special Envoys which, at the moment, are inscribed in the Commission’s budget. If I need to mention the Special Envoys at all, it is because the Council is insisting on transferring the financing of the Special Envoys to the Council’s administrative budget. That may sound very sensible. The problem, however, is that, in doing so, there is a loss of the inspection and the control that of course exists in the case of budget items in the Commission’s budget. I therefore agree with what is stated in Mrs Haug’s report, namely that we must insist that these appropriations for Special Envoys remain on the Commission’s budget, for we in that way ensure continued parliamentary inspection and control and ensure that Parliament continues, for example, to be listened to and kept informed. In the Foreign Affairs Committee, we have been sufficiently constructive, however, as to think also about how a medium-term solution might possibly be found in a situation where negotiations with the Council were taking place. This can be read about in the Foreign Affairs Committee’s contribution to Mrs Haug’s report. For if the Council definitely wants these appropriations to appear in the Council’s budget, there is, of course, the possibility of the Council’s, in return, entering into a type of inter-institutional agreement with ourselves here in Parliament, whereby the Council promises to give us the same information, control, inspection facilities etc as if the appropriations had appeared in the Commission’s budget. That is, therefore, the Foreign Affairs Committee’s constructive contribution, and I should like to add that we, of course, also insist that, whenever anything new is adopted concerning the common foreign and security policy – be it in terms of expenditure or of initiatives – the Council must inform the European Parliament.