- Mr President, may I first mention two annoying things that have happened in the last two minutes. First, to be allocated five minutes speaking time to respond to the contents of that speech is beyond belief. Second, my good friend Mr Samland has pinched half of my best lines.

However, I should like to say to the President-in-Office if all his speech had been like the last two paragraphs it would have been okay. They reflected a spirit of compromise and reconciliation, but the rest of it leaves me and I am sure the rest of this Parliament quite angry. Most of the time it contradicts completely how the Council actually behaves and certainly what the German Government expects from the presidency. The German presidency produced a list of objectives and the President-in-Office has contradicted most of those objectives in this draft budget. The Council has once again produced a technical budget with no political priorities.

(Applause)

The Council has agreed to what COREPER has told it to, without looking at the political aspects. Social policy, rights for workers, trans-European networks, rights in education, the education programmes, the youth programme and drug abuse - all the things which were seen as the Council's priorities - have been cut back, in some cases quite savagely.

It is quite disgraceful to come here and say that the reason the Council has done that is because of the lack of a legal base. May I say, Mr President, that when we had the meeting in July with the Council, we made these points clear and it is fair to say that the Council has ignored every one of Parliament's comments on these areas.

Quite frankly, this draft budget has made a fool of the German presidency's objectives. I was hoping that when we actually saw the draft budget, it would have been far more constructive and in line with the political priorities of Parliament and the needs of the people of Europe.

It was also significant that in the President-in-Office's speech - and I had a draft which I was reading as the Minister spoke - two paragraphs on fraud were omitted. I am sure when he responds he will tell us why that was done. I hope he will not say it was because of lack of time; he has all the time in the world. And some words on fraud would certainly have been appreciated by this Parliament as would a clear commitment by the Council in favour of the recuperation of the monies which have been unduly paid from the Community budget in the case of milk quotas. We are confident that the Court of Justice will support and respect Community law in this sector when it gives its judgment.

(Applause)

It would have been helpful if the President-in-Office had given some positive indication towards that.

On own resources, Mr Samland has virtually said it all. The Council's line is that the draft is simply respecting the legal base. I can say to the President-in-Office that Parliament is open to discussions on the legal base during the next weeks. But that is on condition that the Council is prepared to abandon the abusive practice of using its powers to influence the budgetary procedure without regard to its effectiveness and without regard to cost and benefits to the Community.

On the matter of the legal base and own resources, the question I need to ask the President-in-Office is: does he expect Parliament to agree to the draft budget? It is a simple question. And is he saying that if we actually increase beyond the draft budget, we are committing an illegal act? I am sure the Commission would love to give us its comments on that statement. If we do not increase above the draft budget, the Commission has a great problem. Indeed, we all have a great problem and the President-in-Office knows that.

Unless we get the matter of own resources sorted out - and once again I make the point that the final paragraphs of the speech were very welcome - then quite frankly I remain to be convinced that we will get the 1.21% of GDP because of what the Minister said in the rest of his speech. We need to be convinced and we need to ensure that we can produce at our first reading a budget that is political, that respects the needs of the people of Europe and not the type of thing that has been produced today.

With these remarks, I conclude and hope that the President-in-Office can be more constructive, more welcoming and more conciliatory when he sums up.

(Applause)