European Parliament
Jean-Luc Bennahmias  (ALDE ),
in writing.
(FR)
I supported the La Via report on the mandate for Parliament’s team negotiating next year’s budget. While the European Council has just reached agreement on a growth pact, we need to retain the means of implementing that pact; otherwise, the approach would be incoherent. More than that, I believe that it is high time for the States to commit to increasing the European budget above 1.24% of European GDP as we have the opportunity do so, thereby enabling us to finance a real growth and investment pact. However, we are still far from that because once again this year we are getting into a power struggle with the Council at the risk of blocking the budgetary procedure. I supported the amendments by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance on ITER – I oppose additional funding for this project – and I believe that it is time to diversify research spending in order to concentrate on something other than nuclear power (be it fusion or fission). We talk about more than EUR 1 billion extra for ITER, but that is no small amount.

