Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-21-Speech-2-120"
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".
Mr President, I would like to begin where Mr Mulder left off by first thanking all my colleagues too. I would particularly like to thank all the shadow rapporteurs and all the staff for their support and their contributions. I would especially like to thank the chairman, Mr Wynn, for his support.
This sort of example of piecemeal decision-making does not really give a very good impression of Parliament and it is very damaging to the public standing of this House. If we had more transparency and accountability, decisions like this would be avoided.
President, when I spoke in March, I expressed my reservations about the funding of political parties being included in Parliament's budget. My concern was that we would leave ourselves open to allegations of feathering our nests and being seen to be looking after our own political interest. These concerns appear to have been vindicated, since the funding of political parties has now been included in our budget and already the proposed amount has been increased from 4.2 to 8.4 million as a result of Mr Watson's amendment. Now there are moves to take this amount out of reserve and put it on the line, before we have a clear set of rules governing the deployment of these funds and a clear code of conduct.
Do not get me wrong. We all want the European political parties to have the necessary means to function and to be independent of Parliament and the political groups. I want to take this opportunity to remind colleagues that the principle behind the statute for political parties was to enhance transparency, something which appears to have been forgotten by some groups in this House. They have tabled amendments that undermine this transparency and suggest that this money should be allocated unconditionally. I would urge them to withdraw these proposals so that we can put a clear set of rules in place and make the statute operational.
Another controversial item, and one that has been raised here before, is the question of health insurance for former Members. My position on this is quite clear. I have said previously that I do not think it is a good use of taxpayers' money and I hope that the study that is undertaken will prove this point.
Now I just want to say a couple of words about some of the other amendments which have been tabled, beginning with the WTO. I am extremely concerned about further extending Parliament's budget, which is meant to be purely for administrative purposes, to non-parliamentarians from other parts of the world. What this amendment is proposing is to extend funding from Parliament's budget to other participants at the WTO. We already have this line in the Commission's budget and, while I appreciate that there are administrative problems in obtaining some money from Parliament's budget and some from the Commission's, I do not think that is any reason to move it all together. I think it is right that it should stay in the Commission's budget. We just need to deal with whatever glitches and hitches appear in the budget. At the end of the day it would be quite cumbersome for Parliament to take it all on board, as this would also have internal implications for staffing and so on.
With regard to the EPP amendment putting Council salaries into reserve, I think it is very regrettable that we have this proposal in front of us, I would like to remind Members that we have a 'gentleman's agreement' saying that we do not interfere with each other's budget. I do not really understand the motive or purpose of the proposal and I have heard no arguments or rationale in support of it. I do not find it very helpful at this late stage to put forward something like this and I would like to know more about why it is proposed to put this money in reserve.
Finally, on the amendment on bicycles from Mrs Buitenweg, given what I have said about cars, I am all in favour and I think we should all get on our bikes now.
Anyway, to conclude, can I say that one of our fundamental aims has been to bring ourselves closer to citizens. Can I say that I am extremely frustrated at the pace of progress with our information and communication policy. And I am even more frustrated at the Commission's efforts, which may result, I understand, in closure of many of the Infopoints. In my region of the West Midlands the ordinary person really has no idea of what we are doing in this House. We need to do more to make citizens aware of our work, to increase their interest in it and to increase their participation.
This particular budget is for an historic year, 2004, which will see not only enlargement of the European Union to 25 Member States, but also European elections. My main aim for this budget has been to equip all the other institutions to meet the challenges of enlargement and to ensure proper functioning after accession takes place. However, I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed that the economies of scale that I had hoped for as a result of enlargement have not been evident.
I believe that enlargement has been used in some cases as an excuse by some institutions to create posts for which there is little justification. It is a pity, therefore, that the Council did not put sufficient emphasis on securing greater efficiencies. As I have said before, the Council has been quite generous to all the institutions in its draft budget and, as a consequence, Parliament has had to correct this position. I am pleased to say that my amendments, which were adopted, will lead to operational improvements and increased efficiency.
One of my objectives for this budget was to improve transparency and to achieve greater accountability. In this vein, I am calling upon all the institutions to adopt measures which will lead to these objectives being fulfilled. To do this, we need to ensure that their policies, procedures and systems are reviewed regularly, especially in relation to reimbursement of travel and subsistence allowances.
It appears to be an annual occurrence that one or other of the EU institutions is charged with wrongdoing or lack of control in relation to financial management. It is therefore important that every institution ensures that it has best practice and sound financial management procedures in place.
When it comes to allowances, it is critical that there should be clearer rules governing reimbursement and action to be taken in cases of misdemeanour. It is imperative, in the interest of the credibility of all the other institutions, that this be done and that all the institutions act now.
Furthermore, we need constantly to review our policies and management of systems to ensure that there is no scope for fraud, and I regret that we have not made the further progress we hoped for on the activity-based budgeting that the Commission adopted. I believe that all the other institutions need to follow suit, to ensure greater transparency and accountability.
Let me give you just one example from Parliament. I spent quite a lot of time pushing for this internally and I visited the Swedish Parliament to look at their system, where they have made a great deal of progress. I have also looked into some of the smaller issues such as the car service for Members. We have looked at numerous proposals from the administration, some of which would have been very cost-effective. Yet unfortunately these proposals have had a very short life-span, because they were unacceptable to certain parties. It is because of this lack of transparency and accountability that we have a situation where a majority of the Committee on Budgets was totally against a pilot scheme for a Members' car service.
The scheme proposed instead would reimburse Members an additional 50 euro a week for the cost of taxis. This is complete nonsense, because we already have an adequate daily allowance to cover such costs. However, I understand this is to go ahead despite the huge misgivings that I and many other Members have, because the Bureau has approved it. It comes from a budget line that is underspent."@en1
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