§ Mr. Matthew BanksTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the recent Council meeting of the Economic and Finance Ministers of the European Union. [20892]
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeI represented the UK at the Economic and Finance Council of the European Union in Brussels on 11 March.
ECOFIN adopted the Council's recommendation to the European Parliament for the discharge of the 1994 budget and considered the European Court of Auditors' annual report and the first statement of assurance on the 1994 budget. I noted that although the court's reports showed that there were still unacceptable levels of error, poor management and lack of financial control there were significant improvements in comparison with the previous year. In particular, I was encouraged by the steps taken by the Commission to address criticisms in earlier reports and to improve its internal financial management through the SEM 2000 programme. I announced that the UK would shortly be writing to the court responding to its detailed observations on UK management of Community funds, in line with the Madrid European Council conclusions, and that I hoped other member states would do the same. I also underlined the importance of the Madrid European Council's request that the Council and Commission should consider extending the system of fines for the misapplication of funds in the agriculture sector to other sectors of the budget and hoped that this would be taken forward as quickly as possible.
The Council endorsed the Commission's 1996 work programme for the fight against fraud and expressed support for its four major themes, stronger presence on the ground, strengthening the partnership between the Community and member states, improving the Community's legislative framework and compatibility between national laws.
In accordance with the June 1995 ECOFIN conclusions, the Commission gave its biannual presentation on the situation in categories 3 and 4 of the
564W
Average weekly earnings, of part-time employees on adult rates, whose pay for the survey period was not affected by absence1 £ Including overtime Excluding overtime Manual Non-manual All Manual Non-manual All Great Britain Males 98.09 149.75 126.29 86.35 143.99 117.82 Females 76.60 114.19 101.63 72.24 109.33 96.95 financial perspective. Germany tabled a declaration that any proposal to amend the financial perspective would be unacceptable. This was supported by France, Netherlands, Sweden and Austria as well as by the UK.
The Council took note of my reservations as well as those expressed by Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands on the Commission proposals for the creation of an audiovisual guarantee fund to be managed by the European investment fund.
The Council agreed a proposal for up to 15 mecu of macro-financial lending to Moldova. The Council did not reach agreement on the proposal for extending the mandate for European investment bank—EIB—lending to Asia and Latin America, which expired at the end of 1995.
The Council mandated COREPER to continue work on the Commission proposals to allow member states to apply a reduced VAT rate to flowers and other horticultural and forestry products. The Council also invited the Commission to come forward with new proposals for common parameters within which member states which wished to do so could introduce carbon/energy taxes.
In the afternoon, ECOFIN had its fifth meeting with the central and east European Finance Ministers and discussed the macro-economic challenges faced by the countries preparing for accession.