RESOLUTION A3-0209/92

Resolution on the Commission communication 'From the Single Act to Maastricht and Beyond: The means to match our ambitions'

The European Parliament,

-having regard to the decisions taken by the Heads of State and Government at Maastricht on establishing a European Union,

-having regard to the Commission proposals aimed at giving the Union the means to match its ambitions (COM(92)2000 and COM(92)2001),

-having regard to its resolution of 7 April 1992 on the outcome of the intergovernmental conferencesPart II, Item 2 of Minutes of that Sitting,

-having regard to the report of the Temporary Committee 'From the Single European Act to Maastricht and Beyond' and the opinions of the Committees on Foreign Affairs and Security; Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development; Budgets; Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy; the Energy, Research and Technology; External Economic Relations; Social Affairs, Employment and the Working Environment; Regional Policy, Regional Planning and Relations with Regional and Local Authorities; Transport and Tourism; Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection; Culture, Youth, Education and the Media; Development and Cooperation; Budgetary Control; Institutional Affairs; Women's Rights (A3-0209/92),

A.concurring with the deliberations of the Heads of State and Government on the occasion of their agreement on establishing a European Union,

B.whereas, in a world of instability and crisis the European Community represents a factor for security, peace and stability for the world and for the citizens of our Member States which must be based on solidarity and democracy,

C.whereas the challenges resulting from:

-technological developments, international competition and its economic and social consequences,

-political and economic instability in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean region,

-poverty in the least-developed countries, and

-the increasing environmental risks

can only be met by strengthening the European Community,

D.whereas the completion of the internal market, the establishment of a Political Union and the further development of Economic and Monetary Union and of social union in both political and economic terms will be highly advantageous to the interests of the citizen,

E.whereas such progress will bring overall economic benefits to each Member State beyond the purely budgetary sphere and within a macroeconomic framework, primarily in the form of an increase in trade, general economic growth, a reduction in costs through economies of scale and an expansion in investment,

F.whereas the financing requirements, at less than 1.5% of national product, represent extremely good value compared with the advantages to be gained, even though a greater financial effort now seems essential if the Union is to be given the means to match its ambitions,

G.whereas 'laissez faire' and the free market are not enough to guarantee economically successful and socially balanced European development,

H.whereas a parallel development of the political and social dimension together with the completion of the internal market is a prerequisite for the success of European integration, and whereas it is therefore essential to provide the necessary financial support to promote the political and social dimension and to avoid an approach based solely on the free market, which would have intolerable regional and social consequences and would undermine the foundations of the EC, and whereas the beneficial effects will only be felt on a worthwhile, lasting basis if all the policies implemented by the European Community are guided by the fundamental objective of sustainable development,

I.whereas the Commission proposal reflects the importance of solidarity in the construction of European Union,

J.whereas, in the preparatory stage leading to a single currency, a high level of convergence of national economies and of economic and social cohesion must be achieved, a process to which the Union will contribute by duly adapting all its policies and, in particular, by strengthening the Structural Funds and setting up a new Cohesion Fund,

K.whereas, in the field of economic convergence, the effort required of the poorest regions and Member States to enable them to participate in Economic and Monetary Union is much greater than the benefit they may obtain via the new structural and cohesion proposals, and whereas, without such support, a major part of the European Community would postpone indefinitely its membership of Economic and Monetary Union, which would be tantamount to devising a two-speed Europe more divergent and less united than it is at present,

L.whereas the convergence of national economies must be gauged not just by means of a rational assessment of the extent to which the criteria set for entry into the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union have been met, but also on the basis of other criteria, in particular levels of social exclusion and environmental degradation,

M.whereas, where additional efforts have to be made to secure convergence and cohesion to the benefit of the less prosperous Member States, the favourable impact on growth and employment in the Community as a whole and on intra-Community trade must not be overlooked,

N.whereas the case for joint and concentrated efforts to strengthen the competitiveness of our national economies, in particular in industrial production, is irrefutable, and, in order to prepare for entry into the third stage of EMU, several member States must adopt a restrictive fiscal policy;

O.whereas, at a time of reduced growth and increasing unemployment, such a policy carries a risk of deflation, which in no way obviates the economic and political need for the establishment of EMU,

P.whereas it is essential, therefore, that the EC receives the necessary financial means to assist Member States in economic difficulty, through Community programmes, during this process of convergence,

Q.whereas the forthcoming European Union had a number of extra powers assigned to it in Maastricht for which financing will have to be found, within the necessary constraints of sound public finance:

(a) economic policy,

(b) monetary policy,

(c) social area,

(d) industrial policy,

(e) research and technological development,

(f) environment policy,

(g) vocational training,

(h) culture,

(i) health,

(j) consumer protection,

(k) trans-European networks,

(l) development cooperation,

(m) common foreign and security policy,

and whereas new bodies were also set up,

R.whereas a strengthening of fisheries policy is desirable, in line with the proposed creation of a new structural policy objective,

S.whereas, notwithstanding new tasks, the current interinstitutional agreement expires at the end of 1992, so that a new basis for the future financing of the Community is required,

T.whereas the Commission must regularly provide information on the impact of all EC-financed policies on cohesion, and whereas the EC institutions must ensure that inter-regional differences are reduced and socio-economic cohesion strengthened, not just via budget expenditure, but also by means of a reform of the revenue system,

U.whereas the principle of subsidiarity, a methodology for the application of which is now required, is the deciding criterion in determining whether the Community may be active in those areas that do not fall within its exclusive competence; whereas in areas in which the Community is active its measures will be implemented in accordance with the principle of sound financial management (Article 205 of the EEC Treaty) and having regard to the 'costs and benefits to the Member States' public authorities and all the parties concerned' (Declaration 18 in the annex to the Final Act),

V.whereas the boundaries between the responsibilities of the Community and those of the Member States should be agreed in detail; whereas a high level of coordination between the Community and the Member States, with which the European Parliament should also be associated, will be required, and whereas such coordination will prove effective only if it is planned at several levels, given that both Community and national public expenditure are involved,

W.whereas any transfer of competences from the Member States to the Community must not be allowed to push up total public expenditure, the increases in Community expenditure being offset by reductions in national budgets,

X.whereas the Maastricht Agreements on Economic and Monetary Union severely restrict the Member States' freedom to act in budgetary terms without, however, transferring to the Community a range of instruments and resources to enable an effective economic stabilization policy to be pursued,

Y.whereas the common foreign policy makes special rules on flexible access to specified own resources essential,

Z.whereas the European Union must be given access, on its own responsibility and free of competition from national budgets, to appropriate own resources,

AA.whereas the development of Community public finances must be based on an appropriate statistical system, and whereas the information provided by this system, aimed in particular at calculating GNP and the VAT assessment basis, must meet the requirements of data comparability and the time limits of the Community budget procedure,

AB.whereas improvement in budgetary control is an essential element in the democratic legitimation of the Community institutions,

AC.whereas the time has come to draw up an interinstitutional agreement to strengthen budgetary discipline, guarantee the continuity and predictability of Community finances, make good the continuing democratic deficit in the budget procedure and overcome conflicts of structural origin between legislation and budget authorizations, as well as between the branches of the budgetary authority,

1.Stresses that an increase in own resources is an indispensable consequence of the Maastricht decisions; considers in particular that the implementation of decisions on convergence and cohesion policy and foreign policy require an immediate increase in own resources; urgently recommends that the Heads of State and Government draw up decisions to that effect as soon as possible so that Parliament and the Council are in a position to implement them as legislative and budgetary acts before 31 December 1992;

2.Takes the view that speedy adoption of an interinstitutional agreement on the implementation of the Commission's proposals under the Delors II package is one of the key means of achieving the ambitious targets that the Community set itself in Maastricht;

3.Approves, in general, the guidelines and priorities of the Delors II package, but considers the proposed increase in own resources by ECU 10.5 bn from 1.2% to 1.37% of GNP as insufficient to finance the objectives and tasks agreed to in Maastricht;

4.Points out that specific decisions on the use of appropriations are a matter for the budgetary authority in the course of the budgetary procedure; is nevertheless prepared to reach agreement on fixing overall amounts at politically realistic levels on the basis of a financial perspective for the period 1993-1997;

5.Recalls the need to continue to strengthen Parliament's budgetary control and sanction powers and to force the Commission to implement the budget correctly and in full;

6.Will in this resolution express its view only on the main lines of future Community policies and takes note with interest of the numerous suggestions in the "Delors II package"; limits therefore its present opinion to these aspects and to those which must be taken into account in determining future own resources and the agreement on a financial perspective for the years 1993 - 1997;

I.STRUCTURAL AND COHESION FUNDS

7.In view of the persistent severe disparities between several regions of the Member States, approves the decisions of the European Council placing the political emphasis on economic and social cohesion as a pre-requisite for the completion of the single market and, therefore, on the need for increased solidarity;

8.Accepts the increase in Structural Fund appropriations by two-thirds of the 1992 appropriations for Objective 1 and by half for each of the other objectives; doubts, however, that these sums will achieve the critical volume required for effective implementation of structural policy objectives;

9.Stresses the economic and social importance of the fisheries sector in the Community; welcomes the establishment of a new Objective 6 for fisheries and urges that the funding allocated to it should take account of the sector's restructuring needs;

10.Supports the proposed flexibility in taking new approaches to structural policy into account and anticipating new processes of industrial change, such as those likely to result from worldwide disarmament; calls, however, for this flexibility to be accompanied by a rigorous check on additionality;

11.Takes the view that the statistical indicators for the new German Länder should be disregarded in the context of the economic classification of Community regions in order to prevent the inappropriate and artificial exclusion of some Objective 1 regions from receipt of Community and national aid;

12.Welcomes the establishment of a substantial Cohesion Fund taking into account the objective of economic and social convergence and declares its agreement with the proposed volume of that Fund and its direct incorporation into the 1993 budget; stresses that this forms part of the financial equalization advocated by the European Parliament;

13.Calls for the Cohesion Fund to be seen not simply as an equalization fund, but also as an expression of Community solidarity, and for it to be used in conjunction with other financial instruments, observing the principles and priorities of Community structural policy and applying the criterion of cost-effective financial investment;

14.Will also state its position on the legislative proposals for the strengthening of the Structural Funds and the establishment of a Cohesion Fund at the appropriate time; urges now, however, that the proposals on the Structural Funds should safeguard the fundamental principles of the 1988 reform, i.e. concentration, additionality, partnership and subsidiarity, and should also cover the environmentally sound use of natural resources, ongoing monitoring and the assessment of the activities financed and their sustainability;

II.FOREIGN AND SECURITY AND DEVELOPMENT POLICY

15.Shares the view that foreign policy measures should be regarded as a political priority for the period 1993-1997 in view of the need to stabilize the Community in its role as the main guarantor of peace, democracy and growth in the South and East;

16.Calls for the instruments and provisions contained in the Maastricht Treaty to be used to frame common foreign and security policy and their financial implications to be taken into account in the budget;

17.Supports the proposal, in the light of developments in Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, to make substantial funds available under the budget; doubts, however, that the level of financing proposed will be adequate to meet the international challenges facing the Community; proposes, therefore, an increase for category 4 of ECU 1 bn;

18.Points out that the need for these foreign policy appropriations could become acute as early as 1993-1994; proposes, therefore, that a significant increase in funds should be made available from 1993;

19.Stresses also that traditional development policy commitments should be strengthened through a reform of policies and instruments and an increase in financial resources;

20.Expects that global environmental protection will require an increasing Community financial and technical contribution in the years to come in order to be able to implement and develop further the aims defined by Parliament, such as the setting up of the Environment Agency and the future measures to preserve the tropical forests;

21.Hopes, having regard to the spread of world hunger, for an increase above the 1988-1992 level in the amount set aside in the budget for food aid, and calls on the Commission to resubmit its calculations; stresses however that only structural development policies can provide a lasting solution to the problem of self-sufficiency in foodstuffs for the Third World;

22.Sees an urgent need for the Eighth European Development Fund to be incorporated into the budget of the Community from 1995, and expects the Commission to propose at the earliest opportunity a corresponding increase in the overall amount of own resources earmarked for the Union between now and 1997 in order to take account of the incorporation of the EDF in the budget for the period 1995-1997;

III.INTERNAL POLICIES

23.Regards the further development of internal policies as a priority; notes the Commission's proposals on the future shaping of internal policies, and will comment on them in detail at the appropriate time;

24.Fails to detect any adequate strengthening of the efficiency of the internal market or the competitiveness of the economy in the Commission's financing proposals;

25.Supports a substantial growth in research and technological development; stresses, moreover, the need for a new financial commitment to strengthen industrial competitiveness in the Community; the aim is that the Community should make an effort comparable with that of its main competitors, which requires that Community and national policies should be geared to predetermined targets;

26.Accepts in principle the priority status of trans-European networks, including public transport and combined transport, in conjunction with the requirements of more effective use of available traffic capacities and restoration of geographical balance; reserves the right to submit a detailed opinion;

27.Hopes for a stronger financial commitment by the Community in the following areas in particular:

(a)more rational use of energy and exploitation of renewable energy sources,

(b)environmental protection and clean and economical use of raw materials,

(c)development and use of clean technologies,

(d)occupational qualifications to improve industrial potential in international competition;

28.Proposes, consequently, to increase estimates for internal policies in 1997 by at least ECU 1 bn above the level fixed in the Commission's proposals, which would enable Parliament, after exhausting all possibilities for savings, to make the necessary arrangements in the budget to comply with the priorities proposed by the Commission;

IV.AGRICULTURAL POLICY

29.Stresses the great urgency of fundamental reform of the Common Agricultural Policy in line with the European Parliament's proposals;

30.Notes that the operation of budgetary discipline and the stabilizers has been shown to be inadequate and proposes that they be strengthened; the principle of sound financial management applies just as much to agricultural spending as to other areas of the budget;

31.Can agree to the proposed corrections to the agricultural guideline only on condition that an economically, environmentally and socially satisfactory reform of agricultural policy has been achieved in line with the principles formulated by Parliament and that, as a corrective to the 1988 decision on budgetary discipline, the levels of agricultural expenditure actually incurred will be made unambiguously subject to the financial perspective and budgetary authorizations and measures will be adopted in good time if actual agricultural expenditure threatens to exceed budgetary authorizations;

32.Recommends, therefore, that the proposed additional ECU 1.5 bn should be allocated to category 6 of the financial perspective;

33.Hopes that the structural policy aspects of the agricultural guideline will be combined with the amounts earmarked for category 2 of the financial perspective; calls, therefore, for the agricultural guideline to be applied to expenditure in connection with market-related policies, including expenditure on set-aside and extensification, to expenditure under the Guarantee Fund for fisheries and to expenditure on income support;

34.Calls for the agricultural year to be brought into line with the financial year; calls on the Commission to submit information on the financial impact together with its proposals, to this end, regarding the Financial Regulation;

V.ADMINISTRATION

35.Approves the global estimate for administrative expenditure, but points out both that the detail of the proposals has not yet been agreed with the other institutions, and that the institutional innovations adopted at Maastricht have still not been allowed for, so that additional corrective action may well have to be taken;

VI.RESERVES AND GUARANTEES

36.Welcomes the Commission's initiative in finally securing, through a contingency reserve, the risks of Community financial guarantees vis-à-vis third countries in the Community budget; notes that the overall volume of commitments will rise, given the likely increase in Community lending activities; considers, however, that a 20% reserve to cover these risks in the Community budget is too low; hopes that a specific early-warning system will be introduced, leading, if necessary, to a review of the financial perspective;

37.Advocates that a special reserve for international emergency aid, to which both branches of the budgetary authority would have joint access, be set up in the budget;

VII.OWN RESOURCES

38.Deplores the fact that the current Commission proposals will take the own-resources system even further away from the objectives set for it when it was established in 1970: guaranteeing financial autonomy for the Community characterized by a direct link between the taxpayer and the European Community; adds its voice, however, to the criticisms of the regressive components of the existing own-resources system;

39.Regards some of the underlying reasons for the most telling criticisms of the own-resources system as being the unbalanced and regressive nature of EAGGF payments (still expected to account for 46% of the proposed appropriations in 1997), which cannot be corrected on the revenue side; considers it therefore essential, in seeking to reform agricultural policy, to ensure greater fairness in the impact of its distribution and that the principles of social and economic cohesion are complied with;

40.Acknowledges that the Commission's reform proposals point in the right direction, but regards them as marginal and insufficient; therefore recommends, in the medium term, the gradual conversion of the so-called fourth own resource (GNP-based resource) into a clearing system that will fully rectify divergences between VAT revenue and the GNP distribution scale, to achieve which there should be an immediate cut-back in VAT revenue, more radical than that proposed by the Commission; proposes, in view of a number of Member States' budgetary imbalances, that the Fontainebleau agreement be reviewed in the near future with a view to making the system of own resources and expenditure fairer and to making payments by and revenue for Member States reflect their respective degree of prosperity;

41.Takes the view that financial autonomy for the European Union will help to reduce the democratic deficit currently affecting Community budgetary policy; considers, moreover, that the case for introducing, as soon as possible, a fifth resource in the form of a Community tax is unanswerable, so as to free the Community from its paralysing dependency on national Member State revenue;

42.Notes, however, that to date neither public opinion nor the Member States have been adequately acquainted with this proposal; proposes that a special interinstitutional conference be convened with a mandate to draw up proposals in this connection, on the basis of which a decision will be taken in 1994 on the searching reform of own resources;

43.Calls on the Commission, in preparation for that conference

-to improve the Community's statistical instruments, in particular so as to ensure that the information provided on GNP and the VAT assessment basis meet the imperative of comparability of data and the deadlines laid down in the budget procedures,

-to develop new instruments to make the own-resources system more transparent as regards its redistributive impact between and within Member States,

-to put forward proposals for a comprehensive, balanced and fair finance system guaranteeing the financial autonomy of the European Union;

VIII.INTERINSTITUTIONAL COOPERATION (IIC)

44.Reiterates its criticism that the Maastricht Treaty failed completely to address the problem of the democratic deficit and, in particular, that the intergovernmental conferences ignored all the EP's proposals in respect of the budget; takes the view that the new interinstitutional agreement must serve to enhance the effectiveness and the democratic nature of Community decisions on financial matters;

45.Considers the impact of IIC in 1988 to have been favourable on the whole; detects a central weakness - one that has repeatedly deprived the Community of effective financial decision-making powers - in the Council's insistence on unanimity in revisions of the financial perspective; condemns this as violating the substance of the 1988 agreement;

46.Declares its preparedness to conclude a new interinstitutional agreement incorporating a financial perspective for the period 1993-1997 on the following conditions:

(a)making good the democratic deficit in the budget procedure by introducing fair joint decision-making on the main components of the budget and finances that respects the Community's commitments and ensuring consistency between the political and financial planning of the Community's activities;

(b)guaranteeing priority for budget decisions over the binding force of legislative acts on levels of expenditure;

(c)agreement that any margin existing between the overall upper limit of own resources and the expenditure limits in the financial perspective can be invoked in review decisions pursuant to the majority rules under Article 203(9) of the EEC Treaty;

(d)consolidating the Commission's powers to implement the budget within the meaning of Article 205 of the Treaty, and a guarantee that these powers cannot be undermined by interposing the authority of other bodies (commitology);

47.Believes that a mid-term review will be required in the autumn of 1994 prior to the appointment of the new Commission and the further enlargement of the Community;

IX.CONCLUSIONS

48.Proposes that the European Council adopt the following guidelines:

(a)the Commission's financial proposals on the Structural Funds and on the Cohesion Fund to be launched in 1993 should be approved in principle; they should be incorporated into Community law in accordance with the following principles:

-consolidating the fundamental principles of the 1988 reforms, such as concentration, additionality, partnership, subsidiarity and control, on the basis of an assessment of the implementation of those reforms hitherto;

-gearing the activity of the Cohesion Fund to the objectives of convergence, by applying not only a criterion of equalization, but also the principles and priorities of Community structural policy;

(b)the appropriations allocated to external affairs will be increased by ECU 1 bn, the appropriations made available being increased significantly from 1993;

(c)appropriations for internal policy areas should be increased by ECU 1 bn in 1997;

(d)the agricultural guideline should remain unchanged for the time being; for the years 1994-1997 a reform reserve of ECU 1.5 bn should be created, and on conclusion of agricultural policy reform it should be incorporated into the agricultural directive with the joint agreement of both branches of the budgetary authority; budgetary discipline should be tightened to ensure that legal commitments under the Common Agricultural Policy will be kept unambiguously within the limits of authorized appropriations;

(e)the schedule of appropriations earmarked for administration should be approved subject to the comments of the other institutions;

(f)the loan guarantees to third countries should be monitored under a special early-warning system that will safeguard the remaining categories in the financial perspective against depletion in crisis situations;

(g)the upper limit on commitment appropriations for 1997 should be fixed at an overall amount of ECU 89.5 bn;

(h)the overall upper limit on own resources should be raised to 1.40% of GNP, with European taxpayers being informed of the extent to which this consists of transfers to the Community that can be offset by matching cuts made in national expenditure;

(i)over and above the Commission proposals, the distribution of own resources among the Member States should be geared more closely to the GNP distribution scale;

(j)an interinstitutional conference should be convened with the task of submitting by 1994 proposals for a systematic reform of the own-resources system, so as to ensure that the burden is evenly spread and the Community in placed a position where it will have free access to own resources in circumstances of direct public accountability;

(k)so as to guarantee efficient and conflict-free cooperation between the institutions in the budget procedure, a new interinstitutional agreement should be concluded that will guarantee adherence to budgetary discipline and to the financial perspective, make good the democratic deficit in the budget procedure, give the European Parliament a role on an equal footing and ensure compliance with budgetary objectives by means of legislative acts;

o o o

49.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the European es.