Mr President, let me highlight three of the budget items which concern the REX Committee most of all. Firstly, we fully endorse the Commission's proposal to earmark 59 new posts for the anti-dumping sector. The present situation whereby an anti-dumping action can take 18 months or even two years to complete is just not acceptable. The individual cases must be dealt with much more swiftly otherwise it makes a mockery of the whole system. I feel sure the Council must agree with that philosophy.

Secondly, we want to strengthen our export promotion effort to third countries, not weaken it as the Council proposes. In particular we need to sustain the admirable executive training programme for Japan which allows young men and women to go to Japan to study Japanese for one year and then work with Japanese firms for six months to learn how the Japanese do things. Up to 57 men and women went in one particular year but at present the figure is only 42 and if the Council has its way the figure would go down to 30. I plead with the Council because I believe we will support this amendment which appears in my name.

The third point concerns the PHARE and TACIS Programmes. We have, as you know Mr President, put some of this money into reserve in the past year for the TACIS Programme. I believe it had a tonic effect on the Commission and the Commission officials. Many of us would have wished to do the same for the PHARE Programme this year and indeed the Committee on Budgets proposed to put 25% into reserve though I gather they have gone back on that vote in the last few hours. Nonetheless, we in the REX Committee feel that we must ask the Council and ourselves to monitor this situation much more closely than we have up to now for the good name of the Community. I would ask the Council to bear this in mind.