MEPs this month debated a series of reports on various aspects of Agenda 2000 - particularly the issues of enlargement of the Union to the east, and the new financial perspectives now envisaged for 2000-2006. Inevitably the CAP and the Structural and Cohesion Funds figured prominently in the debates and resolutions.
Gerard Collins (UFE, Munster), Parliament rapporteur on the Cohesion Fund, in presenting his report said: "It is my belief that despite the significant benefits that the cohesion countries receive from this fund and despite the strong economic growth of recent years there is still a significant infrastructural deficit in the cohesion countries. These simply do not have the same level of basis infrastructural facilities which typify the rest of Europe. Continued EU funding is therefore necessary to consolidate progress so far made."
Mary Banotti (EPP, Dublin) said that Ireland still has "substantial and real underdevelopment, in particular in the West, in parts of Dublin and other urban blackspots. We need a revised structural fund to tackle these problems and a greater political consensus to solve them efficiently." Pat Cox (ELDR, Munster) criticised Agenda 2000 as adequate rather than visionary. He called for a greater role for regional and local authorities in regard to economic and social cohesion, for the maintenance of existing structural fund urban initiatives and for a soft landing when withdrawal of funds became appropriate.