1985 BUDGET PROCEDURE: FIRST READING IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

by Altiero Spinelli

SUMMARY: The European Parliament approves the draft budget for 1985 at the first reading.

During the discussion, the Assembly considers the motion for a resolution submitted by Gero Pfennig (German Christian Democrat) on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the increasing of Community own resources.

On the basis of the proposals prepared by the Commission and approved by the Heads of Government at the Council meeting in Fontainebleau, the Community's own resources deriving from VAT should be increased from 1 to 1.4 % of the VAT revenue until 1988, when they should be increased to 1.6%.

Since it is apparent from the financial forecasts that even during the period 1985 to 1986 the Community budget will require the full increase of resources deriving from VAT, Spinelli calls upon the European Parliament to approve a substantial amendment to the Commission's proposals by introducing an automatic and progressive system for the increase of income, consistent with the Spinelli report of 9 april 1981. "Speeches in European Parliament, 1976-1986", Pier Virgilio Dastoli Editor. (EP, 23 October 1984)

Mr President, I shall confine myself to speaking in favour of Amendment No 16, which is concerned with only one point, but an important one, the problem of the level of VAT. It is an amendment which departs from the proposals made by the rapporteur, Mr Pfennig, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets.

The Pfennig report proposes that the maximum share of VAT reserved for the Community be raised to 1.4 % and that it should remain at that level until 1988, when it would be increased to 1.6 %. This request has been put forward although President Thorn has made known to the Council that the 1.4 % ceiling would be reached as early as next year. Consequently, if it were adopted as it stands. Mr Pfennig's proposal would mean that the new Commission would have to operate within the strait jacket of 1.4 % for three years and then 1.6 % in the fourth year. The Commission would accordingly be obliged either to forswear all development of new common policies or to propose that they be financed from sources outside the budget and therefore outside the control of this Parliament. That would be quite out of keeping with the arrangements called for by Parliament in its 1981 resolution on new own resources. Parliament then proposed that the aggregate volume of resources to be transferred by the States to the Community be

fixed periodically on the basis of multiannual programmes to be proposed by the Commission and approved by the Parliament and the Council. We have now come to the eve of the vote on the budget for the 1985 financial year and the vote of confidence in the Delors Commission, to which we look for more vigour, more independence, more imagination and more initiative than has been displayed by the outgoing Commission.

If Parliament intends to pursue a significant political strategy, it must begin by demanding that the Commission should, as from the beginning of its term, have the right and duty to present a four-year programme, accompanied by costings, for the policies to be implemented by the Community. It is on this basis that the budget for 1985 should be prepared. This is the purport of my amendment.

Secondly, we should make ready to reject the budget for the 1985 financial year on the first reading, because it has not been built around any programme. The new Commission must be given the opportunity to prepare a budget geared to the requirements of its four-year programme.

Thirdly, we should be making ready to pass a vote of confidence in the new Commission, but only as long as it meets these demands from Parliament.

I hope that Parliament will take account of these considerations and vote for my amendment. Above all, I hope that the two groups which have traditionally led the field in their commitment to the construction of Europe - I refer to the Group of the European People's Party and the Italian Communist Group - will set the right example. At all events, should my amendment be rejected, I shall vote against the Pfennig motion for a resolution because it calls for a resolution of dissimulated capitulation. 'Dixi: et salvavi animam meam.'