Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 13 September 2012 - Strasbourg

11.10. European Venture Capital Funds (A7-0193/2012 - Philippe Lamberts) (vote)

- Before the vote:

  Philippe Lamberts (Verts/ALE). – Mr President, we are in the same situation, Sophie Auconie and I, regarding this report. I just want to draw your attention to the fact that this is a quite exceptional case where, after successfully concluding the trialogues, with an agreement openly announced by the Commission, Parliament and the Council Presidency in the person of the Prime Minister of Denmark, the Council has decided to renege on the agreement.

What we are going to vote on today is the text as agreed with the Council. We are urging the Council to stand by their word and to adopt that text, with the wording we agreed at the end of June. As we still want to give some leeway for discussion with them – but just discussion – we will not take the final vote. At least that is what I will propose to you; but we intend to stay firm on this matter.

I might add that the reason why the Council has reneged on this agreement is in order to prevent us fighting all too effectively against tax havens – which is really a disgrace.

  President. – Thank you, Mr Lamberts, I will hold a vote on your motion before we possibly move on to the legislative vote.

  Carl Schlyter (Verts/ALE). – Mr President, I would like to hear the comments from the Cyprus Presidency.

(Laughter)

  President. – I would love to give you a positive answer, but there is no representative of the Council here, and there therefore cannot be a positive answer to your question.

(Parliament adopted the motion to defer the vote on the legislative resolution)