There was an estimated cost of about $930 million, including $50 million in contingency costs, but that was a budgetary estimate.

The multiannual work programme shall, without prejudice to the annual Community budgetary procedure, include a multiannual budget estimate.

rules and procedures for the multi-annual project plan and resource estimates plan, their presentation and structure, including budgetary provisions and estimates for a period of five years.

rules and procedures for the annual work programmes and resource estimates plan and their presentation and structure, including budgetary provisions and estimates for a period of two years.

propose a budget for 1999 clearly reflecting the finding by the Court of Auditors that over-generous budgeting is liable to result in insufficiently strict financial management; propose reforms and a new financial perspective in the context of Agenda 2000 that follow the principles of sound financial management and tight budgeting; rationalize the number of programmes, ensuring that they do not overlap, so as to improve the efficiency of financial management (e.g. measures for SMEs); set for future programmes unambiguous, non-conflicting objectives, bearing in mind the observations by the Court of Auditors concerning programmes suc ...[+++]h as PHARE, TACIS etc.; refocus or discontinue activities with poor performance and poor evaluation results (as done for MEDIA II in the light of evaluation of MEDIA I); continue to work with non-member countries, especially applicants for membership of the European Union, in order to improve their administrative machinery and ensure that money reaches beneficiaries sooner and is spent to good effect; avoid, as far as possible, the bunching of commitments and payments at the end of the financial year.

I do not wish to conclude this point without stressing that the measures taken over the last few years by the Commission have made it possible to provide more accurate budgetary estimates, to improve implementation and to reduce the surplus.