Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-17-Speech-3-005"
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"en.20031217.1.3-005"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate on a Statute for Members of the European Parliament.
I would draw your attention to the fact that all the positions I have just outlined are the result of lengthy, detailed Council debates that took place a long while before the Parliament approved its Statute on 3 June 2003. As regards some recent initiatives put forward in Parliament, the Italian Presidency has witnessed a positive initial response from all the delegations in the Council. Should these initiatives secure the support of Parliament, we would be closer than never before to agreement on this longstanding issue.
As I stressed at the start of my speech, dialogue is the only way to eliminate our differences and the Council is ready for dialogue. For its part, the Italian Presidency has always been willing to find a solution and I know that the incoming Irish Presidency fully endorses this approach.
Mr President, when the Council Presidency wrote to you on 21 November 2003, we stated clearly that the Council was fully open to dialogue with Parliament on this issue. Moreover, that statement confirmed the offer made by the Greek Presidency, in the person of Mr Papandreou, on 20 June 2003. That is why today’s debate is important, providing us with an opportunity to move forward and to explore the possibility of reaching agreement at last after 25 years.
Mr President, the Council fully respects the primary role played by the European Parliament in drawing up the Statute for its Members. According to the procedure laid down in the Treaty, it is Parliament’s responsibility to lay down the regulations and general conditions governing the performance of the duties of its Members, after seeking an opinion from the Commission and with the approval of the Council, which requires unanimity as regards taxation. It is therefore clear that the European Parliament cannot introduce the Statute without the consent of the Council, and the Council cannot approve the Statute unless Parliament puts forward proposals it can accept. It would be as well to remember this.
Mr President, I know that many of you are keen to know what the Council's position is on the Statute in general and, more specifically, on a number of proposals which have been made at different levels in recent weeks.
When Parliament forwarded its proposal for a Statute to the Council last June, it was clear that substantial differences existed between our respective positions, thus preventing the Council from giving its approval. You will remember that, before that, last March, the Greek President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Papandreou, outlined to a Parliamentary delegation the parts of the Statute which were acceptable to the Council and which were not. I regret to say that Parliament's June proposal was too far removed from the Council’s positions and that made it impossible for us to give our approval.
I will, if I may, outline once again the Council’s position on the key issues. Firstly, the Council is of the unanimous view that we cannot modify primary law by means of the Statute: the aspects relating to primary law will therefore have to be regulated through a different instrument. The Council welcomes the measures recently adopted by the Bureau of the European Parliament on the reimbursement of expenses. In the Council’s opinion, this reimbursement must be carried out on the basis of costs actually incurred.
On taxation of Members of Parliament’s salaries – a point which requires unanimous agreement in the Council for it to be able to give its consent – the provisions regarding the Community tax to be applied to the salaries received by MEPs must not prejudice the entitlement of the Member States to subject these salaries to their national tax system, provided that the salaries are not taxed twice over.
As regards retirement age, while there was a clear preference in the Council for a retirement age of 65 years, we would, in a constructive spirit of compromise, be prepared to accept a limit of 63 years.
As regards the difficult question of salary, the Council does not have any objection to determining the figure by taking as reference a particular percentage of the salary of a Judge of the Court of Justice, an approach which would solve the problem of annual adjustment."@en1
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