Activities of Gérard DEPREZ related to 2016/2004(BUD)
Plenary speeches (1)
Guidelines for the 2017 Budget - Section III (debate) FR
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on general guidelines for the preparation of the 2017 budget, Section III – Commission PDF (383 KB) DOC (114 KB)
Amendments (16)
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 7 a (new)
Citation 7 a (new)
- having regard to the joint statement for a payment plan 2015-2016 agreed on 19 May 2015,
Amendment 42 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Notes the Commission’s European Economic Forecast (Autumn 2015), which indicates a modest recovery; stresses, however, that this recovery remains worryingly weak and too slow for a prompt return to full employment to be achieved, with long-term and very long-term unemployment on the rise; notes, furthermore, the appearance of new challenges, such as the risk of slowdown in emerging market economies and global trade, with particular pressure arising from volatility on Chinese markets, the need to tackle the refugee crisis, and persisting geopolitical tensions;
Amendment 64 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Regrets that the Union budget has in recent years been a collateral victim of Member States’ fiscal consolidation efforts aimed at complying with their obligations under the Stability and Growth Pact, which have led them to consider their contribution to the Union budget as a burden and to treat it as an adjustment variable;
Amendment 78 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. HighlightRecalls the fact that the Union has had to face numerous crises in recent years; recalls that a solution has still not been found for the Europe-wide migrant and refugee crisis, which escalated in 2015 with a sudden and massive increase in the numbers of refugees and migrants travelling to the Union to seek asylum, which has further impacted on the internal crisis; underlineshighlights that, despite the Commission's migration action plan, the refugee crisis that knows the Union but also the neighbouring countries of the Syrian conflict has not been solved yet and has even been accelerated in 2015; deplores that a long-term and sustainable European solution has still not been found; stresses the need that the EUnion budget should be used as part of a European solution to overcome these emergenciestrongly revised upwards in order to be able to effectively finance the implementation of EU policies dealing with this crisis;
Amendment 81 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. HighlightRecalls the fact that the Union has had to face numerous crises in recent years; recalls that a solution has still not been found for the Europe-wide migrant and refugee crisis, which escalated in 2015 with a sudden and massive increase in the numbers of refugees and migrants travelling to the Union to seek asylum, which has further impacted on the internal crisis; underlineshighlights that, despite the Commission's migration action plan, the refugee crisis that knows the Union but also the neighbouring countries of the Syrian conflict has not been solved yet and has even been accelerated in 2015; deplores that a long-term and sustainable European solution has still not been found; stresses the need that the EUnion budget should be used as part of a European solution to overcome these emergenciestrongly revised upwards in order to be able to effectively finance the implementation of EU policies dealing with this crisis;
Amendment 88 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Recalls that the Union budget provides the backbone of the investment plan by making available the EUR 8 billion required in commitment and payment appropriations for the provisioning of the guarantee fund of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), out of which a total of EUR 3.38 billion has already been mobilised in the 2015 and 2016 budgets; reiterates its commitmnotes the first examples of synergy betweent to reinforcehe EFSI and Horizon 2020 and the Connecting Europe Facility through the annual budgetary procedure, in order to compensate the cuts agreed during the EFSI negotiations as much as possible; calls on the Commission to actively facilitate synergies between different EU funds, including ESIF, Horizon2020, COSME and EFSI, by using all new regulatory possibilities and setting up a tracking system to identify cases of a combination of EU funding;
Amendment 91 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8 a. Notes with satisfaction the high absorption rates of Horizon2020 programmes but is concerned about the worryingly low average success rate of project financing, which does not only leave many excellent projects unfinanced but could discourage participation in the calls for interest; reiterates its commitment to reinforce Horizon 2020 and the Connecting Europe Facility through the annual budgetary procedure, in order to compensate the cuts agreed during the EFSI negotiations as much as possible; calls on Member States to explore possibilities to take over the Horizon2020 projects that received a positive evaluation but cannot be co- financed due to unavailability of budget;
Amendment 101 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Considers the European Youth Initiative (YEI), in particular, to be a fundamental contribution to the Union’s priority objective for jobs and growth, and therefore reiterates its commitment to continued funding for this programme with a view to scaling it up and thereby offering a greater number of young people the prospect of effectively entering the labour market by receiving a good quality offer of employment, continued education or apprenticeship; recalls the commitment made by the three institutions to ‘ensure appropriate funding via an Amending Budget in 2016, by making use of all available means provided for in the MFF, and primarily of the Global Margin for Commitments’; notes that the figures for implementation indicate full success in terms of absorption capacity; calls on the Commission to present its evaluation of the YEI at the latest by the end of April 2016, and at all events in time for the inclusion of a prolongation of the programme in the EU budget 2017, while also laying the groundwork for the search for a permanent source of funding for the YEI as part of the revision of the MFF; underlines, furthermore, the need to extend access to EGF support to young people up to the age of 25 who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs) in equal numbers to workers receiving support in regions with high youth unemployment;
Amendment 124 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11 a. Stresses the Commission to urgently present a medium and long term political and financial plan, taking into account the different scenarios and their impact on the 2017 budget , to deal with the migration crisis;
Amendment 128 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 b (new)
Paragraph 11 b (new)
11 b. Points out, in regard of the migration crisis, that the Union Agencies require the resources necessary to allow them to fulfil their assigned tasks; calls on the Commission to provide updated and consolidated information on the needs of the agencies; asks the Commission to propose a medium and long term strategy regarding the actions of the agencies in the field of JAI: objectives, tasks, coordination, Hotspots and financial resources;
Amendment 144 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Welcomes the principle and objectives of the EUR 3 billion Refugee Facility for Turkey, and calls on each Member State to take on its share, butCalls on each Member State to take on its share in the package of the Refugee Facility for Turkey; raises the question of how the Union contribution should be made available within the respective ceilings of the Union budget for 2016 and 2017; deplores the fact that Parliament was not properly involved in either the setting- up of the facility or the mobilisation of the Union’s contribution, as shown by the Commission’s announcement of its intention to finance the Union contribution by redeployment from the recently adopted Union budget for 2016 and by pre-empting the margins of the 2017 budget; considers these actions to be clear infringements of Parliament’s rights as an arm of the budgetary authority;
Amendment 154 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Recalls that in the 2015 and 2016 budgets the Commission in many cases refrained from asking for additional payment appropriations for a number of its crisis responses (frontloading of EUR 2 billion for Greece, first initiatives in the area of migration), instead reverting to the redeployment of already existing resources; stresses that this has increased the burden on payment appropriations in 2016 and beyond, potentially re-creating a situation where appropriations may not be sufficient to meet the actual needs of financial programmes across headings; is concerned that this situation, added to the delay in starting the implementation of programmes under shared management, could re-create the conditions which led, at the end of the last MFF, to an unprecedented level of RALs and an unsustainable backlog of outstanding payment claims ; recalls its long-standing position that unforeseen payment needs should be financed with fresh appropriations;
Amendment 176 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Welcomes the Commission’s efforts in developing the ‘EU Budget Focused on Results’ strategy; stresses that particular att, as called for in the TFEU, Interinstitutional agreementi on should be paid to the performance of financial instruments under the Union funding programmes; believes, furthermore, that, aparbudgetary discipline and Parliament resolutions; calls on the Commission to propose a pilot fprom the Union institutions, considerable responsibility also lies wject that would implement in a chosen area of activithy the Member States, given the fact that 80 % of the budget is under ‘shared management’; calls on the Member States, therefore, to do their utmost to guarantee sound financial management and the reduction of errors, and to avoid any delays in the implementation of programmes under their responsibilityconcept of the "performance based budgeting", including the definition of measurable priorities and targets, credible measures to achieve them and adequate quantitative and qualitative indicators to measure performance;
Amendment 177 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19 a (new)
Paragraph 19 a (new)
19 a. Stresses that particular attention should be paid to the performance of financial instruments under the Union funding programmes, which have proved to be able to reach out to important target groups such as SMEs, innovative enterprises and microenterprises and to mobilise significant additional resources from the private and public sector; calls on the Commission to further expand the use of financial instruments, in particular to improve SMEs and microenterprises access to finance as well as to provide them with couching activities, business and financial advice;
Amendment 179 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19 b (new)
Paragraph 19 b (new)
19 b. Believes, furthermore, that, apart from the Union institutions, considerable responsibility also lies with the Member States, given the fact that 80 % of the budget is under 'shared management'; calls on the Member States, therefore, to do their utmost to guarantee sound financial management and the reduction of errors, and to avoid any delays in the implementation of programmes under their responsibility;
Amendment 198 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
22. Reiterates its position in favour of an in-depth reform of the system of Union own resources, and gives the highest political importance to the work of the High Level Group on Own Resources created as part of the MFF 2014-2020 agreement; expects the Commission and the Council to take on board the final outcome, which is expected by the end of 2016, including any new candidate for own resources; recalls that the leading idea behind the own resources reform is to make the Union budget more stable, more sustainable, more predictable, and more autonomous, while alsoautonomous, while ensuring its stability, sustainability and predictability as well as alleviating the burden of excessive spending from national budgets and improving transparency and visibility for the citizens;