Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-22-Speech-3-105"
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"en.20050622.14.3-105"2
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for 15 years a statute for Members of the European Parliament has been under discussion and, as you know, many initiatives have been taken, both by your Parliament and by the Council, with a view to creating such a statute.
Lastly, as regards the question raised by Mr Gargani about the privileges and immunities of Members of the European Parliament, we attach considerable importance to that point, and we fully understand your Parliament’s concern to resolve the issue. The Council agrees that a clear declaration on that subject should be adopted, and we hope that we shall be able to resolve the question of privileges and immunities in the near future.
The statute we are examining today mainly took shape under the Belgian Presidency in the second half of 2001. Parliament and the Council were very close to an agreement at that time, but the stumbling block proved to be the reimbursement of actual expenses and tax liability. The process then came to a standstill, and it was under the Italian presidency that Mr Rothley presented a new draft report to Parliament, a draft that also seemed to have good prospects of success. In his report, Mr Rothley proposed a solution with the potential to reconcile the positions of the Council and Parliament. In particular, Parliament now favoured the reimbursement of Members’ actual expenses under an arrangement that would enter into force along with the new statute. On 21 January 2004, the Rothley report was presented to your Committee on Legal Affairs for discussion. Unfortunately, on 26 January, the General Affairs Council failed to reach political agreement, chiefly because of the budgetary implications of the draft proposals.
In November 2004, in his address to the European Council, President Josep Borrell – you yourself, Mr President – signalled that the European Parliament was willing to be flexible in this matter in order to secure an early agreement. He also emphasised to the European Council that Parliament could not formally present a new proposal without being assured that it would be accepted by the Council and that there was therefore a need for informal consultations. At the end of 2004, under the Dutch Presidency, these consultations took place in the presence of representatives of the future Luxembourg Presidency, and it was agreed that efforts would be made to reach agreement in the first half of 2005. On 12 January 2005, the President-in-Office of the Council, in his speech presenting the programme of the Luxembourg Presidency to the European Parliament, confirmed the Presidency’s intention of ensuring, in cooperation with the whole of Parliament and its President, that the negotiations on this matter would be brought to a successful conclusion.
Mr President, after 26 years – yes, 26 years – of being directly elected by universal suffrage, the European Parliament still has no uniform statute for its Members. That is why today and tomorrow, when the vote takes place, could be decisive, given that the Council and the European Parliament seem to be able to proceed at long last to a decision.
Let me pay special tribute to the efforts of Mr Gargani, rapporteur and chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs, and to the members of that committee, who have managed, within what was admittedly an extremely tight time frame, to present a report that should certainly satisfy the Council. It is also true that the Presidency could perhaps have devoted even more time to this matter. We thought we could resolve the issue of the financial perspectives at the same time. Had we known then what we know now, we should have left the matter of the financial perspectives to the next Presidency in order to focus more sharply on the Members’ Statute. I am particularly grateful to you, Mr President, and to your office and your Secretariat for your combined efforts and for the continuous formal and informal dialogue with our Presidency. You have displayed a great deal of courage and tenacity in pursuit of this statute, which has not always been an easy matter. May I also thank all the other Members of Parliament who have patiently, and sometimes discreetly, helped us to work on this difficult and sensitive issue, which is always liable to be a target for demagogues. This was brought home to me once again this afternoon right here in Parliament.
The Council, for its part, has kept its promise by trying to establish a consensus on a number of elements that might be the key to agreement on the draft statute. In a letter of 6 June to your President, I enumerated these elements, foremost among which are remuneration, the principle of reimbursing travel and staff expenses on the basis of actual cost and the principle that the European Parliament, and hence the Community budget, should shoulder responsibility for pension contributions. The Council cannot but be gratified to note that, thanks to our close cooperation, all of these elements have been incorporated into the final report submitted to you today. I believe that the draft on which we are preparing to take a decision is conducive to greater transparency, an ever-present demand in all of your deliberations and in all of ours. The draft also respects a fundamental principle that underlies all European policies, namely that of non-discrimination, as well as the principle of equal pay for equal work.
In a letter of 16 June, I expressed my satisfaction to President Borrell at the overwhelming vote of approval delivered by the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs on the report you have presented to us. I also indicated that the amendments adopted by the committee were acceptable to the presidency, with the exception of the clause included in the final report, in recital 12 of the parliamentary resolution, about which Mr Gargani has just spoken. We believe, in fact, that the substance of this recital falls largely within the domain of national laws and regulations. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to prevent a government from paying a supplement or allowance – call it what you will – to its MEPs to put them on a par with members of the national parliament. That, however, is a national matter; it is not a matter for European legislation. European law has to ensure that there is equality within the European framework. We talk of subsidiarity; let us practise it for once. It is certainly true that this provision has been discussed among the various parties. We have exchanged correspondence, which, I believe, has a certain political value and which is based on a sort of code of confidence between the presidencies of the Council and Parliament. These letters have spelled out clearly that such agreements or national regulations, as the case may be, are not opposed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on this last outstanding issue, namely recital 12, I hope that we shall be able to find a solution that satisfies the Council too. It would be wrong to give the impression, in adopting a Community instrument, an act of the European Union, of creating a European statute while paving the way at the same time for its renationalisation. This is essentially why we do not want this amendment in recital 12.
As far as procedure is concerned, once the report drafted by the committee chairman, Mr Gargani, has been approved by you along with the resolution and decision, the adopted documents will be submitted to Coreper for approval on 30 June in accordance with Article 190(5) of the EC Treaty. I hope that this procedure, so close to the finishing line, will have a satisfactory outcome. I believe that, in doing this, in adopting this statute, we shall also be ending a situation that is completely incomprehensible to the public at large as well as ourselves. As you said, Mr President, we shall be enhancing the credibility of the European Union, the credibility of your Parliament and its Members’ Statute and also of the Council, which, after all, will have approved the statute. I believe that the Presidency has displayed commitment – not always enough, perhaps; I accept that criticism – but what we want to do today is to make that final push and take our decision."@en1
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