Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-15-Speech-4-219"
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"en.20010315.12.4-219"2
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"Mr President, thank you. Thank you too Mr Rocard, in your role as chairman of the specialist committee, for speaking to you, Commissioner, on behalf of the European Parliament, because it is clear that, as concerns this statute, we are moving very slowly. Our Parliament has been in existence for so many years yet we are still trying to settle this issue, which should have been taken off the agenda years ago.
You have given us some good news. The pace is to be speeded up. We can all rejoice at that. What is the current state of play? The Council asked us to abandon the route towards turning our assistants into officials. We complied. We withdrew this document, which had caused the Council so many problems, from the negotiating table. The Council asked Parliament to get rid of any reference to taxation. We complied, and the assistants themselves acknowledge that they are prepared to relinquish any reference to taxation as long as they get a proper statute.
The Council also asked us to take all the necessary measures to ensure transparency and, as our fellow Members have reminded us, everything is in hand. In a few weeks’ time, no Member of Parliament we will be able to have access to their budget line to pay their assistants if they have not first made an appropriate declaration to the parliamentary services – and I did my duty as an employer this afternoon. They will therefore not have access to their budget line until they have handed in a copy of all their contracts, in the prescribed form, together with proof that their assistants have full social cover and are well protected in the event of an occupational accident.
Finally, in a few weeks’ time, the whole of Europe will know the names of our assistants. We are really going to come out into the open, because, at present, no Member of Parliament is able to provide the list of all those people who work so hard to ensure that the European Community functions properly.
So, here we are. We have taken the steps we were asked to take. We would not understand it if, now, the Commission did not do what it always said it would do in the many varied contacts we have had, that it was ready, when the time came, to take the decisive step to finally enable us to have a legal basis to take us forward. We would not understand it if, once this step had been taken by the Commission, the Council, which has always told us, whether it be under the Finnish Presidency, the Portuguese Presidency, the French Presidency and now the Swedish Presidency, that it too was ready to do its bit, did nothing. Parliament has done its bit. It is now up to the other institutions to do theirs.
What can be done? I believe that the report by Mr Vandersanden, which you, Commissioner, masterminded and circulated, is a good working base. Modifying Regulation No 1408/71 is the right thing to do because then we will have something simple and consistent and we will finally be able to give our assistants a statute which does not suffer from any legal debate. It is not a question of seeking to harmonise social protection systems, but simply to coordinate policies, which amending this regulation will allow.
Let no one tell us that this is complicated, even though unanimity is required in Council. Since 1997, it has been possible to make no fewer than five amendments to this regulation and always unanimously. Give us a legal basis. In the working group I lead, in which all the political groups are represented, Parliament is finally debating this issue with a united voice. All the political groups are united in asking you to take this decisive step.
Of course, once you have taken this decisive step and, we hope, the Council has followed your example, we will not have a real assistants’ statute. There will still not be a code of ethics, a collective agreement and a system of equalisation to ensure fairness amongst all assistants, as my colleague from the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party said, where there is equal pay for work of equal value. This system of fairness can be introduced in the form of an equalisation fund at the level of the European Parliament.
Give us this legal basis and we will do the rest. We need you to take this decisive step. Our fellow Members have said so. Legality, simplicity, transparency and a high level of social protection are called for. If you give us legality, we will guarantee simplicity, transparency and a high level of social protection."@en1
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