1980 BUDGET PROCEDURE: FIRST READING IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

by Altiero Spinelli

SUMMARY: The European Parliament approves the draft budget for 1981 at the first reading.

The Commun'ty's financial situation is now nearing paralysis as a result of uncontrolled growth in agricultural expenditure and exhaustion of the Community's own resources.

Whilst the Parliament deals with the 1981 budget procedure, Spinelli prepares - on behalf of the Committee on Budgets - proposals for an increase of own resources, inviting the Commission (which has the right and the duty to present a request for an increase in tax revenue) to discharge its responsibility, in the knowledge that the European Parliament will judge it by its attitude to this matter which is vital to the Community.

It will be necessary to wait until the Council meeting of june 1984 for the Governments and the Commission to discharge this responsibility, when the Community coffers are practically exhausted and no adequate action has been taken to remedy the situation. "Speeches in European Parliament, 1976-1986", Pier Virgilio Dastoli Editor. (EP, 4 November 1980)

Mr President, if Parliament adopts - as I expect it will - all or most of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgets, the end result will be a draft budget practically the same as the preliminary draft budget submitted by the Commission. There will just be a few additions here and there. As for the items where we go a little too far, Mr Tugendhat has already told us that he will be unable to accept them. His answer puts me in mind of the elderly gentleman described by Sebastian Chamfort. He had been long and earnest in wooing a somewhat reluctant lady, and just as she was on the point of yielding, the old man, on account of his age - and in the case of the Commission, on account of its political impotence - asked the lady: "Would you mind being virtuous for another quarter of an hour?"

I think this is all the difference there is between Parliament's budget and the draft prepared by the Commission.

Be that as it may, I think it would be a good idea to stop for a moment and think about the difference between the Council draft and the one submitted by the Commission and resubmitted, with a few minor changes, by Parliament on Thursday. The difference is simply this: there is no doubt that there is going to be additional expenditure because the costs of the price support scheme will go up next spring. Basically, the Commission is saving that when that time comes it will propose an amending budget, as part of this budget, and so its proposals are close to the ceiling. The Council, on the other hand, wants to leave the door open for a supplementary budget. What it boils down to is whether we are going to have an amending or a supplementary budget next March. If you ask me, this is not the right way of going about things.

This state of affairs is borne out by the fact that the Council said it was ready to consider the proposal put forward by the Committee on Budgets - as an indication of its desire to curb expenditure - for a provisional appropriation of 2% of the price support expenditure, i.e. approximately 254 million, to be entered under another heading. Mr Adonnino referred to this. But do you really believe that a housewife out shopping has saved money by taking it out of her purse and putting it in her coat pocket? She has still got the money, and she is still going to spend it. I have told Parliament before - although it does no harm to mention it again now and then - about how I heard it said time and time again at the Commission, first by Mr Mansholt and then by Mr Landinois, that any old sum could be written in for price support expenditure. The actual figure in the budget was irrelevant because, when the time came to pay, we were obliged to pay out since this expenditure was compulsory under Community law. In othe

r words, additional budgets would simply be drawn up. This means that it is pointless making these minor alterations.

It is Parliament's hope and the Commission's intention to remain within the budget and perhaps within the limits of agricultural expenditure. It is highly likely, however, that the limit will be exceeded. I imagine that everyone in the House is aware that, at their meeting in Luxembourg on 13 and 14 October, the agriculture ministers began discussing farm prices along the lines of a 10% increase. It is common knowledge - and I am sure Parliament knows too - that for some time the Commission has been basing its calculations on a rate of one percentage point to 5 0 million units of account. This means that 1 0 % equals 5 00 million. So we shall have to find another 500 million units of account, and probably a bit more because there are almost bound to be increases in production or something like that. The point is that the Council wants to save 800 million, but Mr Santer has made it quite plain on two or three occasions that there is some scope for flexibility. In other words, a couple of hundred million will

be tossed as a sop to Parliament, while the other 600 million will go on increased farm prices.

What this all means is that we have to admit that this budget, as it stands, does not meet the Community's requirements. This has been stated by all and sundry, and als ' o for the most part by Mr Andonnino in his report. I am not goint to go over again what has been said. In practical terms, however, it is neither possible nor sensible to reject it. Let me tell you why it is impossible. Because the Commission and the Council really have their hands tied by virtue of the fact that agricultural expenditure depends on regulations which exist, and the 1 % ceiling depends on a Community law. This applies to the Commission and to the Council and to Parliament, too. If we were to reject the budget, we should have to adopt another which was basically the same.

I feel that in these circumstances Parliament should not, however, be content with compiling a list of its wants and moaning about what is wrong. What I mean is that it cannot be content with what Mr Andonnino came up with and what most of the Committee on Budgets approved in his motion, which is simply a list of wants and complaints. Taken on their own, one by one, the points he makes are valid, but they lack thrust and purpose - what Goethe would call das geistige Band There is no encouragement for the approach that Parliament should be adopting on this.

We have tabled an amendment to rectify new paragraph to be inserted immediately after the reference to Parliament's requests last year. With this amendment we want Parliament to note three things. Firstly we want it to note that the Commission was well aware that we should reach this stage because it said so in white papers, statements and in speeches before this House. It knew that we should get to this stage where resources are running out with the ruinous spiral of the price support scheme. In spite of everything, the Commission has been culpably lazy throughout 1980 and has not made a single proposal on either point.

The second thing we want Parliament to note is that the Council has exerted a great deal of subtle but effective influence in dissuading the Commission from presenting any such proposals. It has continued to consider that farm price support has an absolute prior claim on the Community's own resources and it has ignored completely all pleas by Parliament. Indeed, in some cases, it has even reduced amounts for policies which the Council itself said were necessary. Thirdly - and this is the main point - Parliament must realize that it cannot go on seeking small and, in the long run, insignificant savings and indicating priorities which it very well knows cannot be followed up, and it has to issue a solemn warning - not to the present Commission as it would be utterly pointless - to the new Commission and to the Council, so that next year we get a budget which presupposes the adoption in 1981 of the changes in agricultural regulations which we have been advocating for so long. In 1981 there must be new opportuni

ties for raising own resources - and this need not take years, Mr Notemboom. If the will is there, a fortnight of talks at government level and three or four months in the national parliaments will be enough, because you only have to put 2 % in place of I % or just do away with the ceiling. We have to urge that these two things get done during 198 1. In addition, we have to ask for the budget to be based on a global policy which has been discussed and accepted by all the Community's political institutions, which includes us, and not Simply on a series of sectoral measures. If we issue this solemn warning, letting the Council know right away that next year's budget will be judged in this light, we shall have given the proper answer. With this budget, amendments can be made to our heart's content, but that is not really solving the problem.

Do not think that in tabling this amendment we are trying to be like the man in the Bible who saved his soul by speaking out. It would be a sad matter if this amendment were to be rejected. We should like to put it forward for signing before the vote and then for adoption by everyone here who is anxious and concerned about the way in which the Community's affairs are being run at the moment and about how the Council and the Commission have been, and still are, managing matters. We want to urge everyone to take stock of the situation and we want Parliament to ponder the fact that the time is getting closer when it will have to undertake the task of completely rethinking and reorganizing all the institutional reforms which the Community needs. Let us go no further than this warning for the moment. If we do not give it our approval and if we fail to make things crystal clear to the new Commission and the Council, we shall simply have moaned a bit about this and that and altered the odd thing here and there, and

we shall end up with the 200 million units of account which the Council will give us to keep us happy. I think Parliament is deserving of something better than that.