WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3816/97 by Carmen DÍEZ DE RIVERA ICAZA to the Commission. Green accounting
8. 6. 98 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 174/135 To recapitulate, the Commission contends that budgetary flows do not capture all the benefits from membership of the Community. Community membership, which gives rise to financial and non-financial advantages as well as obligations, has a non-budgetary dimension the importance of which dwarfs the budgetary dimension. For example, the benefits from the pursuit of common objectives, such as trade liberalisation and European economic integration, cannot be evaluated in terms of budgetary flows alone. Moreover, flows from the Community budget invariably benefit not only the recipients but other Member States in the form of return flows. Typical examples are structural funds and external expenditure, where the implementation of projects often gives rise to purchases of goods and services from other Member States. Furthermore, there is no single definition of a budgetary balance. This inevitably makes possible the design of various methods of approximating the net budgetary benefits from membership of the Community, and the choice of particular method often reflects the desire to highlight a particular point of view or to defend a specific issue. In view of these difficulties, the Commission neither produces nor does it endorse any particular method of calculating the Member Statesí budgetary positions. (98/C 174/203) WRITTEN QUESTION E-3816/97 by Carmen D ·ez de Rivera Icaza (PSE) to the Commission (28 November 1997) Subject: Green accounting Could the Commission inform me, as rapporteur for Parliament on the Communication COM 94/670 on green accounting and environmental indicators, of the questions and responses obtained by the Council on steps taken to implement the abovementioned Communication? Answer given by Mr Santer on behalf of the Commission (20 January 1998) The communication to which the Honourable Member refers established a work programme which it has been possible, thus far, to carry out with existing operational credits, available to the Commission, as planned and without specific reference to the Council. The communication was officially transmitted to the Council in January 1995. Since this time the collaboration with Member Statesí representatives has been at working level, most frequently in the regular meetings of the committees on environmental statistics. An oral report on their achievements was made to the Environment Council meeting in Luxembourg on 16 October 1997, as a follow-up to which the Commission prepared a more substantial report (1) on the current situation, which has been sent both to the Parliament and the Council. This latter report was discussed on 16 December 1997 in the Council which, while marking its appreciation for the work being done, did not make any substantive gesture as regards the financing of the work. (1) SEC(97) 2314. (98/C 174/204) WRITTEN QUESTION E-3817/97 by Mar ·a Izquierdo Rojo (PSE) to the Commission (28 November 1997) Subject: Institute for Research on Mediterranean and Euro-Arab Cooperation Heading A-3059 of the 1998 General Budget refers to the Institute for Research on Mediterranean and Euro-Arab Cooperation, as well as adopted Amendment 789. The exact location of this centre is not specified in the texts made available to Members nor in the justification incorporated into the amendment concerned. Therefore, could the European Commission tell us where this Research Institute for Mediterranean and Euro-Arab Cooperation is situated?