Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-29-Speech-3-161"
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". – I was reflecting on the very good point, amongst others, that Mr van Hulten made earlier on, seeking the explanation for the fact that the House, including myself, had the delight of listening to a lengthy foreign affairs debate earlier on.
Finally, our equal opportunities document presents specific policy proposals to ensure equality of employment opportunity, so that the evident inequalities, which have been endured by women, by people from ethnic minorities and people with disabilities, can be addressed effectively without compromising standards of merit. In these documents we have again sought to take examples from best practices in Member States.
To save time and to recognise portfolio relevance, I hope that the House will accept that it is best at this juncture to leave the salient issues raised in Madame Guy-Quint’s very thorough and very constructive report from the Budget Committee and also the financial management issues highlighted in the equally productive report by Mr Pomés Ruiz to my colleague Commissioner Schreyer.
With more time, naturally, I would be very happy to address the matters raised, and I am sure that there will be other opportunities. For now, however, I will focus on just one of Mr Pomés Ruiz's points, one raised by other honourable Members in this debate, namely his question of why the Commission has not acted on the proposal made in a number of Budgetary Control Committee reports that there should be a separate chamber for disciplinary hearings for budgetary irregularities, either within the Court of Auditors or in the Court of Justice. I think Mr Van Hulten made the point in the course of the debate again.
It is a fair question and there are basically two reasons for not taking up proposals that the Commission should have recourse to such external institutions. First, the Committee of Independent Experts stipulated, in my view rightly, that any such body should be an internal one, not least because the Treaties attribute very specific roles to the other two institutions in controlling the financial implications and the legality of the Commission's disciplinary decisions. It would create untenable conflicts of interest, not to say some constitutional gymnastics, if either Court were to be directly involved in the Commission's internal procedures. In addition, such changes would obviously only be possible with amendment to the Treaties. Secondly, in practical terms, dividing a disciplinary case up into its financial aspects and its other aspects of conduct, with these matters being heard in different institutions, would have the very undesirable effect of considerably lengthening the disciplinary procedure.
I hope that the House will agree that these reasons are sound, as the document on discipline this morning shows. In most Member States and in all international organisations, the institution itself is responsible for disciplining its staff. We strongly believe that should remain the case in all the European Union institutions.
Turning now to the governments and human resources issues of the reports from Mr Lamassoure and Mr Harbour, I regret greatly that time does not permit me on this occasion to make the detailed response, which these reports merit. Suffice it to say at this juncture that I very much welcome both these reports.
I thank Mr Harbour for the very positive and thoughtful approach that he and his committee have taken to the complex issues of the modernisation of human resources policy, both in the Commission and in the other European institutions. The report has given us additional and extremely useful bases for discussion in many of the relevant areas and the opportunity which was provided by the public hearing on human resources policy organised by Mr Harbour offered practices and perceptions from the public and private sectors which were all extremely instructive.
I would like to extend my thanks to Mr Lamassoure for his constructive insights and his constructive remarks on the constitutional context in which the current reform is being pursued. He rightly draws attention to the broad issues and argues that it would have been valuable if the forthcoming governance White Paper could have preceded the proposals for administrative reform. Ideally, of course, he is absolutely right. I know, however, that he and other honourable Members understand that the political priority and the urgency necessarily given to the reform agenda meant that any delay in pursuing that agenda would not have been feasible or acceptable. I am sure, however, that the analysis and the principles that will be set out in the Governance Paper next year will directly inform us, as we complete the design and begin the full implementation of reform and modernising changes over the next two years.
I express my gratitude to all honourable Members for their hard and thoughtful work on the reform issues undertaken over recent months. I also thank them for the quality of the further contributions made in the course of tonight's debate and I am naturally glad to be able to say, with justification, that the hope that I expressed last year that the Commission and this Parliament would sustain an alliance for reform is proving to be absolutely realistic. I thank the House for that too and for your patience this evening.
The difference between the time given to that debate and the time given to this debate and the occasion on which they took place, I would point out to Mr van Hulten, is very simple to understand. For the European Parliament, foreign affairs is a vital and interesting matter, and I completely agree that, having had a lifetime's interest myself in these issues, that is a proper explanation. For the European Parliament, reform is a vital matter on which it has decisive effect as a budgetary authority and as a legislature. That explains in politics why foreign affairs gets two hours and comes first and reform gets one hour and comes second. The more power you have over an issue, the later it comes in the night.
Mr President, I am very grateful to you for the opportunity of this debate to respond to the excellent work of Parliament's four rapporteurs, the four musketeers, on the Commission's Reform White Paper. It is also appropriate for me to provide an up-to-date picture of the latest progress with the implementation of our strategy for applying modernising changes and for preparing the further improvements, which we outlined in our strategy eight months ago. I am very pleased that my colleague, Michaele Schreyer has been able to join us and naturally she will respond on the parts of the reports that relate particularly to her budget portfolio.
I would like to begin by reporting to the House that this morning's meeting of the College as Mr Van Hulten said earlier, adopted a proposal for an interinstitutional agreement establishing an advisory group on standards in public life, as outlined in Action 1 of the White Paper action programme. It adopted a preliminary strategy for decentralisation and simplification of decision-making procedures – something which eventually will lead to substantial increases in Commission productivity and reducing those strata of bureaucracy that everybody rightly talks about.
The College also agreed today substantial proposals relating to the reform of human resources policy. Those human resources policy documents relate to discipline, to whistle-blowing and to equal opportunities. They will be the formal basis for the legally required consultation between the Commission, its staff and staff representatives, which of course will take place over the coming months.
Our approach on disciplinary procedure proposes several necessary changes, including the improvement and restructuring of the investigative phase of disciplinary proceedings, which would be handled by a specialist service. They include: making the disciplinary board a permanent and more professional body, chaired by a qualified specialist from outside the Commission; improving the provisions governing the justified suspension of officials, including those being prosecuted in criminal cases in national courts; consolidating the vital coordination between the Commission and OLAF whilst not compromising the essential independence of OLAF; refining the list of possible sanctions to relate them better to any proven contravention of staff regulations. All these proposals are focused on enabling the Commission and the other European institutions, including Parliament, to improve the professionalism, the consistency and the reasonable speed of disciplinary procedures and to do so without loss of fairness or rights of the accused.
The document on whistle-blowing proposes a system that compares well with the best existing practices in Member States. It proposes the integration of the existing OLAF regulation reporting obligation into the body of the Staff Regulations. It sets out the rights of career protection for whistle-blowers who report genuine concerns in a responsible way. It establishes safeguards against frivolous or malicious reporting. It emphasises the responsibility for those receiving reports of possible wrong-doing to act promptly, seriously and effectively. It defines many clear procedures in several channels for reporting alleged wrong-doing inside and outside an official's employing institution.
In addition in the right to report to OLAF and to the hierarchy of his or her own institution, an official will also be entitled to report suspicions and evidence to the Presidents of the Council or this Parliament or the Commission or the Court of Auditors or the Ombudsman.
The provision of external channels will be a major and progressive change, which I am certain will work to the benefit of the institutions and their staff, the European Union and, of course, the public interest."@en1
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