WRITTEN QUESTION No. 938/98 by Arthur NEWENS to the Commission. Relaunching of Med-Urbs, Med-Campus and Med- Media Programmes
C 354/42 EN Official Journal of the European Communities 19. 11. 98 As long ago as 1995, the reform of market organisation for rice sought to make Community rice more competitive by gradually reducing the intervention price over three marketing years and raising the quality of Community production through stricter criteria for rice bought by the intervention agencies and changes to the standard quality criteria. The Council fixed a limit on imports of rice originating in the overseas countries and territories (OCT) which enters the Community duty-free. The Commission has taken and will continue to take all possible measures to support market prices and, as far as possible, to avoid having recourse to intervention. Thus the limits on exports with refund set by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) for this marketing year have been reached and considerable quantities of rice are being provided as aid to the most deprived in the Community, all possible ways of carrying out food aid operations have been used and ways of carrying out other food aid operations are being studied. All these measures are designed to improve the situation on the rice market and to reduce purchases by the intervention agencies as much as possible. (98/C 354/77) WRITTEN QUESTION P-0938/98 by Arthur Newens (PSE) to the Commission (16 March 1998) Subject: Relaunching of Med-Urbs, Med-Campus and Med-Media Programmes Repeated assurances have been given by the Commission that the Med Programmes are about to be re-launched, according to the last communication I received from the Commission áearly in 1998í. Some organisations, such as the London Borough of Islington in my constituency, had projects approved in 1995 and have invested considerable resources in maintaining the relevant networks underpinning them, so that they could be re-activated when the Programmes were re-launched. Can the Commission give any clear indication of when this will happen? Answer given by Mr Mar ·n on behalf of the Commission (8 April 1998) On 17 July 1997 (1) the Parliament adopted a resolution based on a report presented in the budgetary control commission by Mr Fabra Valle‘s. In this resolution, Parliament requested the Commission to present, within six months, a report on the measures taken to remedy the deficiencies affecting the management and implementation of the Mediterranean decentralised cooperation programmes as highlighted in the special report (1/96) of the Court of auditors. The resolution also requested the Commission to submit to the Parliament the new measures it intended to put in place for the relaunch of these programmes in 1998. This report, transmitted to the Parliament in January 1998, responds in the view of the Commission to the recommendations formulated by the Parliament in its resolution. Parliament has acknowledged it through its commission of budgetary control. The Commission is now prepared, during the second quarter of this year, to relaunch the three Mediterranean decentralised cooperation programmes. The relaunch, taking into account the new measures which have been adopted, will address in the first place those projects which were already earmarked following the 1995 call for proposals for these three programmes. (1) PE 260. 948/103