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David Cameron must explain to the Europeans, not only to the British
how to solve the problem, do we have more Europe,
also adopted by himself on the basis of the Agenda 2020
on the external action service, on international engagement of the EU
on development and aid, with less European money
so if he's prepared to tell us how to solve the miracle
he is welcome..
RF: His argument is the UK is going through a severe austerity plan
Its not the only European country to do so
and a rise of 6% in the budget is not something member states can afford
Do you see that differently?
Completely..
How?
completely different for three reasons
firstly the European budget does not compare with a national budget
the European union does not have it's own resources,
we have no European taxes,
We don't have our own money.
It is money coming from the member states
We can have no debts, there is no sovereign debt of the EU
That's the big difference between the EU budget and the British budget
The british budget must be reduced as there is enormous debt
Europe has no debt, that's a first point
Second point, we have an external action service, 7000 civil servants more
for international diplomacy, wished also by the way by the UK,
to increase the influence of the UK via Europe worldwide.
with less money but 7000 civil servants more
Its difficult to finance it.
Or there is a third point
Cameron is prepared to give up the rebate on the agriculture policy
then we can for sure discuss a reduction in the budget
Europe's economic governance is the main topic at this summit
RF: There has been talk of better rules for those who violate budget rules 0:00:31.200,0:00:34.500
the contentious issue is should they be automatic or not,
Your chancellor Angela Merkel proposes automatic sanctions,
How do you feel in this debate?
I think there's an overwhelming majority in favour of the sanctions
I think the Council should describe what 'automatic sanctions' mean
If it is meaningful i think the automatic sanctions will be adopted
But it is to describe more concretely, to be concretized
and finally the open question is will that lead to a treaty modification
or not, i'm against it, i think its unnecessary
my guess is that tonight or tomorrow there will be a decision
for the commission and perhaps mr Van Rompuy
to concretize what'automatic' means,
and to check out in which legal framework it could be adopted
how do you feel about this sanction mechanism which is being discussed?
How in your view could this be possible without an official treaty change?
To check if the instruments tabled by the Commission
..in the opinion of Mr Barroso it's not necessary to change the treaty
...are sufficient, we have the task-force proposals of Mr Van Rompuy
who has not outlined which parts would require a treaty modification
so we have two positions, two contradictory positions,
On one hand the president of the Council, on the other, the commission
So im not a judge who has to make a judgement
My proposal, and advice to heads of states here
is to define a mandate for these two men
and to check if a treaty change is avoidable
than to repeat the 10 year debate we had about the treaty
and if it possible to introduce such rules without a treaty change
i prefer this
If it is unavoidable for a legal point of view
they must say which part of the proposal must lead to a treaty change
and in which way they want to change the treaty
or could you imagine in the next 2, 3, 4 years we have debates
as we had in France, Ireland the Uk, the Netherlands, which wasted time
therefore i prefer that modification be avoided but the rules be introduced
I prefer such a solution.