Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-26-Speech-3-115"
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"en.20030326.7.3-115"2
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". – Mr President, I am very pleased to be opening the debate. I am drawn to speak before my co-rapporteur merely by reason of being first in the alphabet and not of seniority in this Parliament.
I want to conclude by referring to the politics of the current situation going forward. We are very conscious, in this House, that the Commissioner is engaged in a major negotiation with Council. We are only here as an advisory Chamber, but colleagues expect us to press the Parliament's point of view as far as we possibly can. We are following the negotiations in Council very closely and we know that pension issues are very important there.
We will be recommending to colleagues in the House tomorrow that they approve all the amendments, but that we should withhold our vote on the final legislative resolution until such time as we are satisfied that the Commissioner has achieved all he is setting out to achieve. Also, with the oral question that we have tabled for the House tonight, we are asking the Commissioner to come back to this House with the results of the final proposal so that we can ensure he delivers what we are all looking for: the optimum framework to carry the European institutions forward in this current century with an optimum personnel policy for the independent and quality staff we are looking for across the institutions.
First of all, I very much enjoyed working on the report with Manuel Medina. I first became engaged in the whole project of the human resources reform in the Commission at the end of 1999 when I was first appointed provisional rapporteur – and subsequently confirmed as rapporteur – for Parliament on the overall strategy. For me, tonight will hopefully be the major culmination of the process. I do not believe we will have further debates like this – I see the Commissioner is enthusiastically agreeing with me. That does not mean to say, however, that this Parliament will not be continuing to take a keen interest in the whole process of the reforms because the regulations themselves have to provide the right framework in which the reforms are carried out.
I also wish to thank colleagues here tonight from the various committees involved. We may not have accepted all their proposals but I want to assure them that we have considered everything very thoroughly indeed and we want to thank them for their contribution and for working with us.
The report we have put before you tonight, colleagues, contains 55 proposed amendments to the regulation package. That may sound like a lot, but when you look at the size and complexity of this package you will see that we have actually concentrated on improving and clarifying the basic provisions of the regulations.
There is one important new principle which I will come to later, but the real point I want to make to colleagues tonight is that our role has been to check methodically that the regulations deliver the reforms that you supported strongly when I presented my report to this House in 2001. That has been the central part of our task. It has not been our task to attempt a re-negotiation of fundamental parts of the package. The Commissioner has spent enough time and has had enough trouble dealing with that process.
Our job has been to look at the politics and the strategy. You will see that we are basically satisfied that this framework of Staff Regulations will deliver the core parts of the reform: the move to a personnel system where members of staff in all the European institutions will be properly compensated, will be able to exploit their talents and encouraged to progress their careers in a system that rewards their efforts. That has meant a new grading structure and a new appraisal system. They are absolutely crucial and we have not sought in any way to alter that part of the process.
In these reforms across the institutions we also introduce a new category of contract staff. Again, that is an area we have not sought to change. In the areas we have looked at, we have done so very much in consultation with other institutions, because it is important to understand that these regulations apply all across the European institutions. Part of our job as the rapporteur team has been to consult staff and executives in other institutions to make sure their needs are fully catered for.
We are proposing more flexibility where institutions want to use it in the grading structure, particularly to retain staff with linguistic duties and specific positions where institutions feel that contract staff may not be appropriate. Tonight I should like to point out specifically the important task of Parliamentary ushers.
What about the new principles? My colleague, Mr Medina Ortega, will say more about this, but the major new point of principle is to propose to you that the existing pension system in today's world ought to be simplified by removing the current weighting system that is based on a pensioner's final place of residence. In contemporary society and with more mobility we really ought to be contemplating a simpler, less bureaucratic system. We are not at all convinced that the present system can be fully justified in today's world. I know there are a lot of discussions going on about the pension system at the moment and the Commissioner may, indeed, refer to that later."@en1
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