- Madam President, I present this motion for a resolution on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Budgets. It is based firstly on our assessment of expenditure up to 31 August and also on the answers to 42 questions which we submitted to the Commission. In the light of responses to these questions and given that expenditure profile, we have now put forward this motion for resolution with regard to the 1994 budget.
I should like just to pick out certain items. Other Members will look at specific areas in more depth. We call upon the Commission to ensure that as far as own resources go, we always have the money coming in as own resources before we plan our budget for the next year, to ensure that we have the correct amount of payment appropriations. That may seem to be an obvious statement but it is certainly valid in the light of what we have experienced in the last couple of years and in the light of what we could experience next year.
On agricultural expenditure, we feel great disappointment still at the inability of Member States to give accurate forecasts of what they will be spending throughout the year and we are not convinced that the CAP reform has improved the situation. We call upon the Council and the Commission in agreement with ourselves to use the current reform of the clearance of accounts procedure to ensure that we do not have the same problems in the future with clearance of accounts and that we can avoid the serious political differences that have been caused by the Commission's 1989 and 19990 clearance of accounts decisions. What I have not added here but what I will say is that we have also seen the knock-on effect of the 1992 discharge and certainly milk quotas tell us lots about the workings of the Council and the Commission in this area.
Paragraph 4 seems to give a problem for the Group of the European People's Party and for the Group of the European Democratic Alliance who have submitted an amendment each. I would say at this point that I propose that we do not accept those amendments. The paragraph is valid as it stands. It concerns the stabilizers in the cotton sector, where we have had major overspending in the last three years and we really need to do something about this. I hasten to add that the problem is not one of the Commission's making but rather of the Council's. And if the Council would actually take the advice of the Commission on this issue we would not have the overspend we have had in the last three years.
When we put questions to the Commission we were disappointed with the response we received about underspending on fraud control measures. We are still waiting for the Commission to give us a breakdown of underspending by measures and by Member States as well as the details of the efforts to encourage greater takeup of these funds. In the same vein there was a near-nil takeup of the other main anti-fraud line, B-2511. I am afraid the Commission's response to our question was not satisfactory.
On the structural funds, as we all know, the great issue is the ECU 725m in the social funds which has not been spent. We have been saying it is an underspend but we are told by the Commission that it has just not been spent. When we look at the reasons for this lack of spending, one thing is apparent: certain Member States are reluctant to use the social funds. What we are asking for in the resolution is for the Commission to make at least some effort to ensure that the Member States attempt to utilize the social funds to the fullest. This is the one area where Parliament places great emphasis on employment creation and alleviation of unemployment. We would hope that in future the Member States will play their full part as the Commission requests them to do.
On internal policies, Parliament's priority has always been job creation. The extra money we put on Line B-5322 has been utilized completely and handed over to the European Investment Bank. What we have to do is ensure that the money is there to create jobs, not just to be given to SMEs to help them in their businesses but to actually create jobs. Paragraph 11 of this motion instructs our own committees to make sure that the monitoring of expenditure throughout the year is done on a regular basis. When we set a budget one year, it is no use complaining at the end of the next year that monies are not utilized as they should be. It is the duty of every single committee in this Parliament to monitor that expenditure, to ask the questions of the Commission and to find out why things are not being done as we would want them to be done.
On external relations, there is reference to the new CFSP expenditure but until the REX report is voted on, I do not want to say too much about that. I know some Members will make comments about it. We are rather concerned that funding of the PLO police force was provided as a matter of urgency but in a way which leaves us with a lot of questions to be asked. In the future I hope we can avoid this type of problem. Also, on external relations, we hope that the lessons that have been learned from the PHARE and TACIS programmes can actually be used to full benefit with new programmes in South Africa.
Paragraph 23 will also have an amendment from the Group of the European People's Party and that is quite acceptable. It is just a different angle on the way it is worded. It will not be a problem for my group nor for the Committee on Budgets or the Committee on Budgetary Control to accept that amendment.
What the motion sets out to do is to ensure that the 1994 budget is well utilized, that the appropriations are not wasted but prudently used for the benefit of Europe's citizens whom we are here to represent.
