particularly beneficial and good ones.

Question No 112, by Mr Welsh Subject Structural Funds and French Guiana

The fourth point is the use of the structural funds.

There is a study, Mr Bettini, from Price Waterhouse on the information technology sector, not just on ESPRIT and RACE.

We are in favour of transparency in the structural funds.

Assessment of the impact of Structural Funds operations

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, one further remark with regard to the structural funds.

Turning to the special procedure for selecting projects, the Commission is grateful to Parliament for its support.

assessment of the impact of Structural Funds' operations (4.4) and

Would it not have been more democratic and reasonable if we had had a thorough consultation with the population before the European Parliament elections rather than simply adopt the plans afterwards?

SPENCER (ED). Mr President, can I congratulate the Commissioner on his acrobatics, but suggest that a greater transparency on all things, both budgetary and political, concerning central Europe might be helpful.

With regard to the declaration on the structural funds, may I ask Mr Bangemann to confirm to Parliament that Parliament will be kept informed before the final adoption of the Community support framework and also on subsequent operational programmes.

We realize that wc aren't yet sufficiently certain about many things.

With the economic prospects held out to us by the internal market, it is not possible simply to leave these groups to their own devices.

To my mind, it is not just about social provisions relating to labour or stemming from employment contracts in the past.

I feel that the improvement of organizational structures and rationalization, even where requirements are growing, are expected of undertakings and farmers every day, and 1 believe these principles should also apply here, before more posts are approved.

The strategy defines the objectives of ESF funding, which it shares partly or wholly with other structural funding.

That would be a pity the democratic and national hopes of all those peoples who have aspired to join us.

IVERSEN (GUE). (DA) Madam President, may I begin by stressing that in our Group we are very pleased that the environment fund has now been placed under Article 2.

Because if the Commission is not absolutely open about our relations with these countries it does lead to the kind of assumption that lies behind this question.

All the Community structural funds should be given an environmentally aspect.

We would be very pleased to lend you one. The caricature is clearly and unequivocally antisemitic.

At all events, the financing of LIFE must not have a negative impact on other funds operating in the same area, such as the EAFRD and the Structural Funds.

Finally, we must quietly work out a system of economic and monetary cooperation among free nations in partnership, drawing on the creativity of popular forces.

The same goes for small scale fishing.

Adopting these amendments would be tantamount to giving retroactive endorsement to the communist regime, which is something that we cannot entertain since German unification as we have said repeatedly isa reconciliation.

The Council has begun to consider these Commission proposals and hopes to conclude its work rapidly.

Why, if Germany now wishes to be European, are we being forced to depart from the basic rule of democracy that no laws may be adopted or be suspended without the consent of the people's directly elected representatives ?

Assess the impact of the Structural Funds support, in particular of the ESF on employment and social policies.

Should specific transitional measures be necessary in this regard, these shall be adopted by the Commission in accordance with the procedures laid down in Article 50(2) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1260 1999 of 21 June 1999 laying down general provisions on the Structural Funds(

As you know, following reform of the structural funds, evaluation procedures have been strengthened for all projects carried out.

I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Lamassoure, on his success in tackling a budgetary procedure which has been dogged by uncertainties and imponderables and even contingency arrangements and emerging from it with a structured and coherent strategy to lay before this House.

So now the Commission has the benefit, so to speak, of a unanimous vote by Parliament and a unanimous vote by the Council.

We shall clearly be voting in favout of the programmes under discussion which increase to eight the number of the fifteen programmes provided for under the framework programme approved by Parliament on first reading.

This did not prevent our discussions from being conducted calmly and efficiently, and at no time was any objection raised by any member of the committee against the manner in which I chaired them.

Assistance from the Structural Funds is subject to an ex ante evaluation to ensure that it is compatible with legislation on the environment.

In my awareness that I do not, alas, share the professionalism and abilities of those who belong to certain schools, who are experts, I put my trust in my colleague and friend Mr Herman as regards the positions he has adopted and is proposing in this democratic debate of such importance to the House.

I think that everyone here has been waiting for this text. We all know that, until the next European elections, the population of the territory of the former GDR, which since 3 October has been subject to Community legislation, will be represented by parliamentarians elected at a time when that population did not form part of the Community.

As regards the appropriations for relief in respect of the coresponsibility levies payable by small producers on cereals and milk and for stepping up the setaside measures, let me say this there are currently surpluses in both the cereal and the milk market.

European officials are right to promote structural reforms of EU countries labor and product markets.

At 1000 million ECU per annum, the Structural Fund assistance is a good two and a half times higher than in the old Federal Länder and ten times higher per capita.

The rapid integration of the euro area money market has also been supported by developments in the payment systems infrastructure , above all the establishment of the TARGET ( Trans European Automated Real time Gross settlement Express Transfer ) system , which allows the smooth functioning of the settlement of cross border payments .

Our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy does, of course, support the introduction of this type of incentive which, in our opinion, complements and helps to reinforce the statutory measures.

This is why we want a pause in the process of building the European single market.

the necessary controls will be applied, both to goods manufactured in the former GDR which do not meet EC standards and to goods imported into that country from its former Comecon partners.